THE PERFECT MAID

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 20, 24 January 1936, Page 15

THE PERFECT MAID

TRIALS OF A HOUSEWIFE

SUBJECT OF CONTROVERSY

"All have dreamt about her, only the fortunate few have ever possessed her—the perfect maid" (says a writer in the "Sydney Morning Herald"). If you bring a couple extra home for dinner she doesn't turn a hair of her neat-ly-groomed head; she smiles sweetly when you ask her to stay up and serve supper to your bridge party,' then turns round ajid evolves the most delicious savouries out of the pantry scraps; she adores the children and blithely scrubs their finger-marks from your walls; and she always remembers to feed the dog.

"These are the qualities you appreciate in her apart from her efficiency at her every-day cleaning and cooking. Her love affairs are not continually going awry, so that she vents her ill-feeling on the best china; she doesn't ask for her wages in advance; her mother is never ill. If the god of luck and the registry office have, combined to send her to you, make the most of your goo.d fortune, for the time is coming when some young man is going to realise that the perfect maid will make the perfect wife, and carry her off.

"Then will come Jane. Your dinner music will be jazzed up by noises off from the kitchen; your bed will be lumpy and your table napkins will never match the cloth; dead moths will sizzle in your inverted lampshades; the kitchen teapot with the rubber spout will find its way into the lounge-room. And then, one morning, you will miss the familiar odour of burning toast and aris« to find that Jane has left without so much as pinning a note to her pillow. You will have a procession of Janes after this, all leaving more or less under a cloud, until, when you are beyond caring and are going grey rapidly, another Marie will save the situation. ■ GOOD AND BAD MISTRESSES. "It is unfortunate that, in Australia, the number of Janes appears to be greater than in England, for example. There has been much controversy on the subject, but nobody has yet seemed to reach a satisfactory solution of the problem. Australian mistresses have been accused of causing the trouble. We know that there are good and bad mistresses here, but there are bad mistresses in England, too. Moreover, even many excellent mistresses in England live in very old homes, where the servants" quarters are almost as uncomfortable as they were in the reign of Elizabeth. Any amount of modern reconstruction cannot get rid of the long flights of stairs that make a 'tweeny' go about the knees. There are fireplaces in every bedroom, which means much extra work, and usually water has to be carried around in those funny little copper cans with the turned-up spouts that abound in the Old Country. The English servants' hours are longer and her wages are usually lower than in Australia, and mistresses, be they good or bad, demand a higher standard of efficiency than women do here. The Australian housewife scarcely hopes for perfection. The English woman expects it, 'and usually gets it. "Having had experience, with servants in many parts of the world, I have come to the conclusion that Australian mistresses are not the ones to blame for the deficiencies of their servants. As a rule, they are more tolerant, being quite ready, to train a girl in domestic work if she is willing to improve, though ignorant of her duties in the first place. Also, they are more appreciative of an excellent maid than are women overseas, simply, I suppose, because they know that, here, she is a treasure worth prizing. ' "What is really wrong in this country is the attitude of servants towards their work. Any European girl who is a good maid is proud of it. She regards domestic service as a career suitable to her station, and if she succeeds in it she is satisfied. I once spilt a bottle of ink in a dTrench bed. I thought up all the apologies I could remember in the language, and then rang for the maid. When she, arrived she glanced at the mess, smiled at my discomfiture, and, with 'At your service,; madame,' quietly set about putting things to rights. What a stir that; incident may have caused in a household in this country! English women, too, have laughed at me when I have worried about upsetting tl|s routine of their household in any way. Tea 6erved in odd hours, meals delayed, surprise weekend visitors, do not seem to disturb in the least degree the even terror of the way of the English domestic. AN HONOURABLE WORK. "So, if Jane in Australia could realise that her job of work is an important and honourable one, she would take an interest in it and not regard it as a drudgery that has to be suffered. She might also stop envying the girls in offices or in factories, or behind shop counters, whom, she thinks, are much better paid than she is. Very few domestic servants pause to remember that they are provided with a home and keep as well as their wages. She might wonder, too, if the girl in an office, who already has had to spend money on her commercial training, will possibly not have as much clear profit to show at the end of the week after paying board and f,ares anil luncheon money as Jane herself has. Perhaps she would realise, too, that the average mistress rarely has a clear pound or twenty-five shillings a week for herself, as most servants do. "I have only had one maid who appreciated her own good fortune in this respect. She had a vast wardrobe of cheap clothes, skilfully gathered on the lay-by system. On one occasion, when she showed me another addition, I said, 'But don't you ever try to save just a shilling or two a week?'

"'Why?' she asked naively. "'ln case of illness,' I suggested.

" 'Oh', madam, I don't have to think about that. When I become ill I can receive free hospital treatment.' "That same lass, I recollect, when I gave her a perfectly good hat a few months old, remarked casually, 'Yes, it might do me if I bring it up to date.' Very annoying she was at times, but at least she was tremendously, contented with Tier lot, and, because of that, she was an excellent servant."