WOMAN’S WORLD.

Dunstan Times, Issue 2479, 3 May 1909, Page 8

WOMAN’S WORLD.

WHERE CAN WE FIND A PERFECT SERVANT GIRL?

An American woman complains that she cannot find the “ perfect treasure” in the shape of a servant. Why should she? Where in other positions of life does one find perfection? Are husbands perfect, or wives, or children, or statesmen, or nurses, or poets, cr stock brokers? Perfection does not exist: and the lady who seeks perfection in her servants is the mistress who is always changing, always in difficulties, and always complaining. Servants have their days, as all women have: their nerves, their weaknesses, their failings, and in this time of over-education and nervous irritability the tempers of servants, like those of other women, are more uneven, more uncontrolled, and more unreliable than those of their predecessors. One fault mistresses are prone to fall into is worrying servants —finding fault before company (which makes the visitor as uncomfortable as the servant), speaking sharply, giving contradictory orders, and perpetual ringing of the bell. One ■ good servant described her employer as "always hanging on fo the bell.” This, a very common practice with nervous women, is simply due to indolence, in that they will not remember the orders they have to give, or make up their minds as to what they want, and to the restlessness which characterises human nature at this period.