FUSTIAN.

Auckland Star, Volume XXII, Issue 34, 10 February 1891, Page 2

FUSTIAN.

. (To the Editor.) Sir,—Judging from his heading, your correspondent, "Paterfamilias," evidently assumes the position of heavy metal mercilessly firing upon an estimated poor little pop-gun, and infers that he has a foeman unworthy his steel. Is it not possible he may counb his juvenile poultry before the process of incubation is complete ? and I may again be pardoned for suggesting that a triple stage would have constituted a more appropriate starting point and have been more in keeping with his last production, in which he asserts his ignorance of the meaning of my letter ; porhaps a pardonable ignorance in his case, for " where ignorance is bliss ib is folly to be wise.' But your correspondent takes upon himself to decide that, during 42 years of a chequered career in the colonies, I have had no experience of tho annoyances arising from the want of competent domestics, and evinces a very happy knack of reversing my position with bis own, when he sayß I am fighting shadows. His constant wail is sorrowful, indeed, re the long cessation of female immigration, which proves one of two things, viz., that "Paterfamilias" is either regardless of the moral status of our female domestics, or totally ignorant of the class of females introduced to the colony by an entire shipment of (so-called) female domestics some years since, the moral influence of which our colony has barely recovered yet. Be the dislike to domestic service Bhown by the daughters of our humble, and I think he might with justice add, honourable classes, I think he will find enough to occupy his time in striving to refute, or dodge, the sound, logical arguments contained in " S.S.R.'s " contribution ot this evening—which should obviate the necessity of novel-reading—to which he has evidently paid.some attention. When he succeeds in cracking the nuts given him by " S.S.R." he may succeed in obtaining as.prudent, industrious and well-meaning domestics in New Zealand as in any part of the world, if properly sought and fairly treated when found. But when genuine domestics find unreasonably fastidious employers, their true womanly spirib (fortunately not yet crushed out of them in the colonies) asserts itself, and they wisely give such employers the cold shoulder, leaving them to the more impudent and careless second-class servants, who evidently, like "Paterfamilias,'' are better versed in sentiment and London journalism than in their respective duties as employers and employed. Your very practical, experienced correspondent's mild impeachment re extracts from the "London Journal" I return with thanks, as more appropriate literature for his feminine mind and maidens, my tastaß being for more solid matter, and time having precluded my ever reading the journal in question, with which "Paterfamilias" infers such an intimate acquaintance. Trusting he may not die ii) the atbempt, but thoroughly succeed in obtaining a real live colonial domestic, equalled by few and surpassed by none of the imported article, —I am, etc., F. R. Bust. sth February, 1891.