Servantgalism in Melbourne.

Thames Star, Volume IX, Issue 3020, 19 October 1878, Page 4

Servantgalism in Melbourne.

A Me Wabeen Bali, of Brighton, teacher, has got into trouble over the servahtgalism question, having been sued in the County Court of Melbourne the other day by Margaret Cutter, a domestic servant, for £50 damages for having published the following libel against her in the Brighton Southern Cross newspaper of the 26th July:—" To the Editor.—Sir, Can you explain how it is there is a law to punish those who obtain money by false pretences, yet an applicant for a servant's situation, looking as clean as a new pin, may represent herself as an early riser, and otherwise excellent in all the manual duties of a household, and on the strength of such statements get a situation at stated wages (on the strength that she will do what she says), and then relapse into dirt and untidiness—utterly fail to do almost all she promised, and, more* over, be persistently disobedient to her employer, and still claim and get the pay without performing her part of the bargain, and even leave her post without notice given or received? Thinking it my duty, on public as well as private grounds, to expose such inveterate lying, incapacity, and imposition as I have described, I went this morning, at great inconvenience, to resist a claim made by one Margaret Cutter against me, but found to my cost the opinion of the majority of the Bench against my view. In order that my experience may be a caution ■ to others, I beg to remain, A "Victim." The defendant pleaded that the letter was true, and he and Mrs Ball and other witnesses gave evidence to support the statements contained in it. The plaintiff and some ;witnesses on the other hand contradicted the evidence given for defendant, and plaintiff also stated that she did not leave defendant's service without notice, but received notice from Mrs Ball. The jury of four who heard the case returned a verdict for plaintiff, damages £10.