THE AUSTRALIAN LADIES GRIEVANCE.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 430, 21 December 1889, Page 4

THE AUSTRALIAN LADIES GRIEVANCE.

The ladies of Australia have, it appears, appealed to the ladies of England for assistance in their sore need, through being unable to procure in Australia servants sufficiently amenable to discipline, and sufficiently well trained to domestic aev vice to give satisfaction to the mistresses. The appeal is mado in a long letter addressed to tho " London Standard," and is a somewhat remarkable production. It commences by referring regretfully to the happy homes in England, formerly frequented by the Australian ladies who were now pushing forward their grievance, and the many opportunities they enjoyed when there for self-culture and benevolent work, and then i comes this touching appeal: " VVe call upon thoae we have loft behind to lend vis a hand of friendship, and to help us to secure the happiness of our homes in tho new country." How those left behind are going to act in this matter it is difficult to conceive, and we cannot help thinking that in this instance the ladieß of Austialia are endeavouring to shirk their own responsibilities and shifb them upon the shouldera of others. The letter gives a doleful account of the I sorrowsofthecolonial housewife. "Ladies," it says, " who in England contented themselves with one visitaday to their kitchen find themselves suddenly obliged to undertake the ontire cooking for their families, the cook having been hastily got rid of, hopelessly intoxicated." This is very rough, and unfairly so, on the cooks. Such things may and do happen occasionally, no doubt, but it is an exaggeration to say that the experience is a common one. If the Australian ladies were to look a little deeper into the inattei they would find perhaps that a very considerable portion of the b'ame attributed to the servant can be traced to the inefficient supervision of tho mistress and her own ignorance of or apathetic indifference to the conduct of her household affairs. It is most true that servants in England are infinitely superior as a whole to the same class in the colonies, and why ? Partly, no doubt, because of .the fcingular reluctance displayed by colonial motheis to send their daughters into domestic service, which causes a scarcity in the supply and greater independence and cheekiness among those who enter that branch of employment, but partly also because much more care is taken in the training of domestic servants in England. In thousands of English homes servants will spend whole litebimes in one situation, becoming indeed almost part of the family, or they will remain until marriage or some other good reason takes them into another spheie of usefulness. In the colonies the choice is more limited than at Home, and mistresses often have to put up with a good deal of worry through inefficient household helps ; but in the long run if a mistiess shows herself capable of holding a firm command and is kind, patient, and able and willing to train the servant in her duties, peace will reign in that hou&ehold and the servant worry will be unknown. In the colonies, unfortunately, there are too many mistresses who have had no domestic training themselves, and who from that cause are entirely dependent upon the servants they engage. If the servant is ignorant, then follows the unhappy condition so graphically detailed in the letter of the \ Australian lady : " The mistresses whose "cultured minds and artistic temperament fit them for a life of refinement and the dedication of their talents to art and literature, find their hands tied, their spirits maddened, and their aspirations crushed by a ceaseless round of worry and vexation and vrearisome efforts to make up for all the deficiencies of their so-called servants." Such mistresses, suddenly confronted with the fact that the servant was hopelessly drunk, and that they had to cook the dinner for the family, would be in despair; they would be entirely out of theii element, ! and" the dinner prepared under such conj ditions would probably not be of a kind which cultured minds with artistic temperaments would care to partake of, Their only remedy is to give high wages for the already trained servano, and leave I everything in the servant's hands. A really well-trained, honest, efficient servant is worth good wagesto anybody, but toaculturedmistiess of artistic temperament fitted only for a life of refinement, such a one is invaluable; but such cannot be picked up haphazard, nor is it always a question of ' wage?. The writer of the letter says : — "The commonest) and moot ignorant servant will toss her hsad and turn scornfully ! away ab the timid oiler of ten shillings a I week. The rate of wages makes one bhudder." The suggestion to meet the difficulty is amusing. " Send us out," gays the wiiter, "batches of at least fifty or" a hundred girls at a time." These are to be sent out at regular intervals, because it is surmised that within a very short period of their arrival " they will I become as exacting and impertinent as the girls around them," and thus fresh ones unaccustomed to ths country, and to a certain extent ignorant of the market value of their services, will be always forthcoming, and the servantgirl market regularly supplied. The letter concludes with the piteous appeal : " Are there no ladies at home who would help to organifcc a society for sending out supplies 1 of respectable girls on a large scale ?" Well, wo should hope not ; especially if the inevitable result of their emigration to Australia is to demoralise them and lower them to the standard of those already in Australia, and of whom such complaints hare been made— a result clearly anticipated by the writers of the letter. Messrs Dalgoty and Company, Melbourne, report of their wool sale yesterday as follows :— We offered 2,700 bales at our wool sales to the usual muster of buyers, of which we sold 2,000. Competition was very animated up to a parity of London prices, the tone of the market indicating confidence in the maintenance of present values. Heavy, earthy, and burry wools, however, were neglected owing to the disappointing results of the early purchases of this description. Prices all round were about equal to those ruling at last sales. An ugly rumour is current (says the " Whangarei Advocate") to the effect that the dreaded phylloxera has made its appearance on vines in this district. We sincerely hope that the report is incorrect, though we can hardly expect to escape the scourge. To Whangarei grape-growers the introduction of the phylloxera would mean a very heavy loss, as thousands of pounds have been spent on glass houses. Mr Horn, we understand, got some vines from Mr T. Scott, of Mount Eden, two years ago, and he has been requested to destroy them. It will be romembered that ' the phylloxera wa& found at Mr Scott's a few weeks since.

Every third person in Berlin is suffering from the prevailing epidemic of influenza, which is spreading rapidly through the whole of Europe.