GERMAN SERVANT MAIDS.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 2698, 26 October 1889, Page 6 (Supplement)

GERMAN SERVANT MAIDS.

TtiK German servant girl hasno bangs or bangles, nor fur-lined cloaks, nor fourbutton kid gloves. She is square shouldered, heavy featured and large limbed. She is neither quick clean nor intelligent, but she can work. She has tho strength of uu ox and is always willing to use it. Most servant girls in German cities arc peasants. Daughters of the poorer townbred families usually become factory hands shop girls or waitresses. The conservative peasants, however, with their old prejudices in favor of everything feudal, prefer domestic service fer their children to any other employment. As Eoon as the peasant's daughter is fourteen or fifteen years old she learns how to split wood, hoe potatoes and plant cabbages. She milks the cow before breakfast, hitches her to a plough after breakfast and often turns furrows all the morning under the direction of her father, who in the meanwhile smokes a pipe and rests. —She mows hay and digs water trenches. During tho harvest" she carries great basketfuls of vegetables from the fields to the barn on her back. When her younger sister bocomes old enough to help her parents to work the little farm, however, the eldest (laughter loses her grip on her father's heart. She is regarded by him a3 an eucumberance, for nothing is more useless in the eyes of a German peasant than a grown daughter who does not earn her living. Therefore, if no Hans or Fritz wishes her to be his helpmate in raising cabbages and potatoes she must go into domestic service in the city. Like almost all novices in an occupation on the Continent, she serves an apprenticeship. For several months sliercceives no wages,nor does she deserve any,for her ignorance is phenomenal. She has never walked on a carpet before and doesn't know a napkin fron a dishcloth or a coal bucket from a kettleShe smash's ei ockevy right and left. She blacks tlis Jluit's patent Isather shoes and oils his mbbi.-i' boots. She puts the table spread on the lluoniiid therugon the table. In fact, sho i* as strange to most of the furniture ami customs in a comfortable house as a Persian or Indian. She learns slowly and laboriously, but she never forget?.