MISTRESS V. MAID.

Evening Star, Issue 11893, 22 May 1903, Page 7

MISTRESS V. MAID.

One of the innumerable side-issues of the eternal servant problem lies, says the Daily Telegraph,' in the question of how far the authority of masters and mistressesextenas over their servants. Is it permissible, for example, for the lady of the house, "judiciously and maternally," to chastise her backsliding Abigail, and may the latter legally resent this striking proof of parental interest by shaking the dust off her feet and seeking rooms and pantries new? This question, recently propounded to three different German tribunals, has now been finally and definitely solved by the highest law court in Prussia. The details are interesting: The scene was laid in Posen, on the estate of a Prussian squire. Mary N., one of the servant girls, had to see that the milk pails were sweet and clean every morning. And herein her remissness was so palpable that the master—not the mistress—after having rebuked her often and to no purpose, at last gave her what the lawyers termed " two loud-sounding" boxes on the ears. Mary wept bitterly, and the subsequent proceedings interested her no more. Turning her back on her master, his kine and his kitchen, she went back to her village and her people. The dramatis personae of the next act include the police, with whom a bitter complaint was lodged—not, as one might suppose, by the buffeted maiden, but by her master. The burden of his lament was that the girl had noright to leave his service, and should lie taken back to his house by force by the officers of tho law,* and there compelled to discharge her duties as before, only with a keener eye foT t cleanliness. And the police duly brought the recalcitrant maid back to her master. Soon she ran away again. Then the irate estate owner formally appealed to the courts. The case was duly tried, witnesses heard, the facts admitted, and Mary came off scot free. But the squire took the matter before a higher tribunal—the District Court of Posen—which quashed the judgment of the lower Court and condemned the girl to pay a fine of ten shillings. Now it was Mary's turn to appeal against the decision, and her lawyers carried the matter before the Supreme Court of the Kingdom of Prussia, moving that the condemnation be set aside on the ground that she had been harshly dealt with by her master. The Penal Senate of the Supreme Court have just delivered judgment, nonsuiting the appellant, on the ground that to box the ears of a servant is only to administer a mild chastisement in the customary form, and does not therefore justify the menial in leaving the house without due notice. From this decision there is no appeal.