A WOMAN'S EXPERIMENT.

Evening Post, Volume LXXV, Issue 27, 1 February 1908, Page 11

A WOMAN'S EXPERIMENT.

The long-standing difficulty, experienced in middle-class households, of obtaining good "general" and other servants at moderate wages continues to be a Eource of worry and perplexity to the housewife, although the theme has not been so freely ventilated of lato as of yoic. The attempt of ladies to take the place of servants and so fill tho breach has not met with much success, for tho reason that tho scheme has not been undertaken with method. It is not tho homework that is disagreeable, but the association with inferiors. The lady domestic (says an exchange) can only be a success where those, or nearly all. who share her work are those of ,hey own cla^s ; but, as it is, in her enthusiasm for a new vocation, she has sought to put up with what haa proved impossible of endurance, and has consequently failed in a branch of work that she is perfectly well able to manage. There are scores of gentlewomen who are better euited for domestic" work than for anything else, and who find real pleasure in cooking and other domestio arts, but who are yet unable to tura their talents to profitable account. An experiment tried by a lady who is necessarily a breadwinner' herself, and has at heart the interests of other woman situated in a similar way, has answered very well. She took a, private house in a couyenieut suburb, furnished it simply but nicely, and started a Doardinghouse, engaging no servant to live in, but having about .her one or two friends in reduced circumstance*, %vh»,^liko herself, share the work of the houpe, with the exception of the assistance given in tho more menial duties — window cleaning, boot cleaning, etc. — by a. respectable young girl, who I comes daily. All the women work to- ! gether in tho happiest manner, arrange their "hours off" in a way, most cou\3nient to all — just as it suits them — and find life very pleasant. 1 ••«•■•••-— «•—•«»«—*