100,000 SERVANTS WANTED

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 154, 29 June 1912, Page 12

100,000 SERVANTS WANTED

NOT TO BE FOUND AT £75 A YEAR. "Wanted, one hundred thousand servants willing to accept a wage of JGS a month," is tho suggestive announcement made* by Mr. Herman Robinson, "Commissioner of Licenses', in a special report to the Mayor of New York, Mr. Gaynor, on tho servant problem in New York. Mr. . Robinson quotes the case of a resident at Mount Vernon, a suburb of New York, who, in a 'garment factory, employs hundreds of girls at an averago wage of £1 a week, and yet is unable to find a girl willing to do general housework in return for board and lodging and 25s a week. Practically every uian'iod women of 'the, middle clasees here is, now forced- to do her own household drudgery. Even a bribe of thirty and thirty -five shillings a week is inadequate to tempt girls into domestic service. Immigrant girls, says Mr. Robinson have revolted against the slavery of the kitchen. They give tho following as their reasons, among others, for preferring the far smaller wa,ges paid in factories :—: — "Servants can have no callers, or, at least, callers are frowned upon by their employers. A servant's work never ends, ehe- has no freedom, and no time o§ her own. Girls in factories can sing together sometimes^ while afc 'work, and flock together Bocialy at night, but the servant ie always lonely. Household service- is too menial and undignified. A girl may work anywhere elfie and call herself a lady, but in the household there is only one lady", and she is the employer. The servant it just a servant. >v Mr. Robinson is convinced that the drudgery of American mothers will never be alleviated until they can consent to treat domestic servants a« other employees are treated, with fixed hours for the day's work and a certain num bei 1 of hours off duty every day.