The Obserber.

Observer, Volume 7, Issue 230, 7 February 1885, Page 2

The Obserber.

Satttbday, Febbttaby 7, 1885. DOMESTIC SERVANTS AND THE SOCIAL EVIL. A large proportion of the girls who fill the positions of domestic servants in our towns are the children of country settlers. They are necessarily removed from parental control and supervision. It is patent to all that the ranks ■ of the "unfortunates" are largely recruited from this class. This is owing, to a very large extent, to the indifference of mistresses to the moral welfare of those who contribute -'>+. in a small degree to their comfort. In the -f majority of cases they act as if utterly \ oblivious of the fact that, when they take a ' young girl into their household, they; are as much bound to watch over her as if: she were their own child. ■ '. „/.. I am well aware of the difficulty of exercising the necessary control efficiently. The ' root of the evil is the "evening out," and I under existing circumstances " Mater Fami~ * lias " can urge, with much truth, that, if she were to prohibit untimely meandering about the streets, she would be unable to secure the services she requires, and be compelled to perform all the household duties herself. The evil might be very much mitigated if all employers, would combine to put down a system that has brought, and is daily bringing, so many of their younger and unprotected sisters to a life of degradation and gin.: There would no doubt be

a "good deal '" of ""kicking 'at" ""first on ' thie part of the class sough^ to . -be benefited. A general" Jd.ete*jmi£atibxi, "how.ever, on the part of the mistress only, to employ girls who were willing to abide by rules as to hours, such* as are manifestly 'right and proper, would compel the, refractory, to subjection. They "would not "allow ; their 'own daughters to keep the hours which , tliey permit on the ;part of those of others, whose moral welfare they are ■equally bound to'promote. 'To enforce rules would, of course, entail the granting of leave of absence during the- day at stated intervals. .

This of course implies some inconvenience, "but surely any mistress fitted to have charge of a household would submit to this in view of the evil to others that the sacrifice would be calculated to. .avert. I am of opinion that the supply of servants under the system I suggest would be more plentiful and of better quality. It is mostly through the fact that parents are compelled from financial pressure to allow their daughters to enter service in our cities, and to , inexperience in the absence of proper supervision, that they are peculiarly "liable to fall. There are few country districts where there is not one or more of its daughters to be mourned as morally dead, and the mention of ■whose name brings the flush of shame to the cheek of : hard-working and respectable parents.

These remarks have been immediately called forth by a case brought forward last Friday in the Auckland Police Court. Here was a« young girl, under sixteen years ©f age, brought up charged with being the associate and companion in sin of prostitutes. It is less than twelve months since this child left her parents home in the bush to take, service in town ; and there is little doubt but that had the mistresses she served done their duty by her, those pi'esent'in the Court would have been spared a painful spectacle, and her parents the shame calculated to bring down their "grey hairs in j3orfow to the grave."

■ Large sums of money are expended annually^ in each of our cities 'in providing -what may be termed the luxuries of religion. Would not some of this be more judiciously spent in providing Reformatories for those who have not yet become so hardened as to be past redemption? The charge against our outwardly religious people is easily sustained. There is too much of outward show and too little practical ChrisJanity, rand the fact that no such tstitutions are established in our midst is one more evidence of the fact. Some portion' of the Ccstley bequest might have been applied to this purpose. . Many of these ■ girls have no friends in the colony to take charge of them ; for those there is only the gaol to serve a term in, which is nearly certain to crush out the feeble spark of self- . respect yet remaining.

Again, the parents of these. girls are, as a rule, poor and struggling people, with possibly other. girls, : yet pure, growing up under this roof. When their is the case, the diffijulty arises, as: to the proper , course to pursue. They owe a duty to the fallen one undoubtedly, and the only way to carry it out is to take. her home, away, from temptation. If they do this, they run the risk of having their other children contaminated. On these grounds, perhaps, they would be •justified in allowing her to serve her term of imprisonment, although '. perfectly aware that all hope of a better life for her will have passed. : ,

"Were a reformatory in existence, the difficulty would be met. The magistrates should be endowed with discretionary power as to whether they commit to that institution or the gaol. Common sense would tell them that the proper place for the young in sin is the one, and for the hardened, and consequently manifestly irreclaimable, the other. It is to be hoped that ray calling attention to' this matter will have the effect of starting action. The police could, and I feel confident would, assist to the extent of immediately arresting each so soon as they were clear that she had joined the ranks of the army of misery.

•'■■'■■' GIVING- 'EM PEPPER. „Mr Woolfieldhas been doing a public seryicVby the peppering he has been giving' the ■ kduAerators" : of ' ''fdacl and cdndiinehts. . I think, however' ""Borne! of the- newspapers were scarcely fair jto "lpcal .! manufacturers in sup pressing the name of the real culprit... Shopkeepers are often very much in, a similar position .to, the publican. They are compelled .by the force- of circumstances to become the cat's-paw of the wholesale manujMJturers. fust as the publicans are of the '™»wers and wine and spirit merchants. 'J^ey.,s.tand all the risk, while the.manufacturer nobbles, the lion's share of the profits; The shopkeeper, and the publican are reviled and anathematised by, , the . ignorant and fanatical, -.while- .the real , sinner, who rides to church in his carriage, rents, a gorgeouslycushioned pew,', and " contributes" liberally to church and charitable funds,, is laudeo! to the skies, and his. connection with the 'business lost in the iglampur^.of that sycophancy and. vulgar worship, .j^hat. wealth always.', commands. When ze&io.us Blue-fibfeonitei agita^ ,

tors denounce "the" arink"fraffic; it is always ihlTj wicked, publican : who comes under the lash of practical platitudes and fallacious "arguments.. The chief supporters of the movement dar,e, not attack their rich patrons, the wholesale manufacturers. They know too well ;on which side their head is buttered. ! . , ;

• Indirect commissions, subscriptions, patronage, and influence, are the hush-money that seals the mouth of the teetotal agitator against the wealthy sinners. But the small shopkeeper and publican can be attacked with comparative inrpugnity, and made the scape-goat for the others. Some of the. leaders in the agitation for enforcing the prohibitive clauses of the Licensing Act in the Iting Country, were the very men who had most largely benefited in a pecuniary sense by the acquisition of enormous areas of native territory, obtained by fraudulent deeds, or the signatures of men who had been deliberately made drunk with vilely adulterated and drugged rum.. Having glutted their own Cerberusian maws, they were prepared to assume a virtuous attitude, and damn these sins which they had no mind to. Men who have amassed wealth by knavery can afford to be outwardly virtuous, and even pious, provided they have not to make restitution. Scores of rascals who have built up fortunes by sanding sugar, mixing flour with pepper, and adulterating common beverages with vile poisons, become repeutant in senility and satiety, endow churches, entertain clergyman send their old clothes and the scraps from their tables to some poor family, are belauded and beslobbered by sychophants and todies, held up as models for the rest of the world, buried with pomp, and their numerous shining virtues inscribed on marbled obelisks. Verily the world is full of hypocrisy !

In many of these recent prosecutions for adulteration of foods, the Star has deliberately suppressed the names of the wholesale dealers who supplied the goods. Advertising patronage is the altar before which our time-serving- contemporaries bow the knee. In one case the offending manufacturer was a person named Trent, of Christchurch, who is said to be the proprietor of a chicory farm, •and . came forward and paid the fines and costs in which his unsuspecting clients had been mulcted. But by omitting all mention of this person's name, the public were left- .under the impression that the wholesale manufacturer belonged to an Auckland firm, and thus a slur was cast upon our local industries. "We trust, however, that Mr Woolfield will have the courage and impartiality to push his investigations still further without fear, favom-, or affection, with a view to suppx*essing the vile and wholesale system of adulteration which characterises many other sources of the common food supply. Floured pepper after all forms but a small proportion of the evil.