DOMESTIC SERVANTS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCVII, Issue 11227, 26 March 1897, Page 3

DOMESTIC SERVANTS.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —Will you kindly give me space in you i- valuable, paper to say a few words concerning domestic servants ? I maintain a servant’s life is not one of the happiest, unless the mistress tries to make the place as much like home as she possibly can j but there are very few who will do so. As a rule, colonial mistresses like to be waited on hand and foot, and so long as they have a good servant they do not care. There are very few people who work harder than domestic servants. Most men have their evenings and Sundays to themselves to go where they like ; but it is very different with the women servants. We generally work fourteen to sixteen hours a day, and then our work is not done, and very few mistresses like to see a servant sitting down even for a few minutes. As for going out, we get very little, for we are shut up in a hot kitchen nearly all the week. I should like to ask the mistresses two questions! First, when they go to church and.repeat the commandments, do they ever think of their servant at home, slaving to get her work done so that she can get a little rest in the afternoon P If they would only obey the commandments all would be well, but they do not. Second, would the mistresses who have daughters of their own like to see them treated the same as we are; shut up in the house week after week ? Now, the mistresses say if we get the halfholiday they will stop our Sundays out. The mistress who would do so is not a Christian. The shop and factory girls only work nine hours a day, while we servant girls scarcely get time to eat our food. Why cannot the law be made to apply to our case as well as to shop and factory girls? I should like to see the mistresses take our places for a month. They would be nearly dead after one washing-day. lam glad Mr Kelly, M.H.R., has been returned again, and hope the other M.H.R.’s will help to get us shorter hours. —I am, &c., A GENERAL SERVANT.