Domestic Service and Democracy.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 858, 10 August 1888, Page 10

Domestic Service and Democracy.

Fortnightly Review.

To understand the antipathy to service which exists among the masses, and why so many

girls who would be better off in service become ill-paid and overworked seamstresses or shop assistants, it is only necessary to look at the cardinal point in the democratic creed. 4 Liberty at any coat ’ is the watchword of the social and political reformer, and the chief ground of discontent among servants is their deprivation of liberty. The degree of labour expected from servants varies in different households, but in all the labour is exacting and protracted. Servants, as a rule, rise at seven or soon after, and go to bed at whatever time suits the convenience of their employers. They are at work generally before the master or mistress is awake, during the fifteen or sixteen hours of the day they are supposed to be at their post, ready to do, any bidding, aud they are the last to bed at night. If a party is given, and the servants are kept at work until far into the morning, they are nevertheless compelled to be out of bed as early as though they retired at ten, in order to take the master or mistress the morning cup of tea. Whilst the employers sleep off the effects of the previous night’s entertainment, their retainers have to bestir themselves to clear up. This comparison, or rather contrast, may be invidious, but is none tbe less instructive. 4 A servant’s work,’ as has been well said, ‘ is never done, potentially, if even actually.’ There is no reason why'this should be so. A very little reorganisation in most London homes would enable the servant to have at least four or five hours every day, or if not every day, every other day, to herself. Let a lady or a gentleman try to realise hovv rigorous are the laws which govern the actions of servants, and it will be seen that the intractability of their retainers is not entirely unjustified. .Has it ever occurred to tho master or the mistress what humiliation and distress attach to the single circumstance that the footman or the housemaid, the cook or the butler, dare not stir beyond the walls of the house, without permission except once, or at most twice, in a fortnight? Nothing is more bitterly resented below-stairs than to have to ask leave to 4 go out,’if only for a few minutes. Again, when servants are allowed out, the time at their disposal is ludicrously meagre, and, as a consequence, quarrels because the man or maid is late are frequent. But when a mistress declaims against a servant who does not come in till 11 o’clock, she never stays to think how often that servant may have sat up for her or some member of the family. Beyond doubt little good comes of girls being allowed out very late, but, if they visit friends some distance off, it is cruelly inconsiderate to compel them to be back by half-past 9 or even 10. More especially is this so when followers are proscribed, and a servant never sees a personal friend from week’s end to weok’s end. If many mistresses had their way the liberty enjoyed by servants would-be smaller than it is; and not very long since a mistress publicly made a proposal that servants who transgress a prescribed limit should be birched ! Her remarks, published in a newspaper devoted chiefly to the working-classes, must have conveyed to the reader an idea, equally unpleasant and false, of the disposition of the upper classes towards their social inferiors. Another matter, to which masters and mistresses insist on impressing upon their servants the fact that what is right in the drawing room is wrong in the servants’ hall, is dress and general appearance, Why, if he wishes—and for all the master can tell it may be a source of comfort to the man to do so —should the coachman, the butler, or the footman not be allowed to grow his beard and moustache ? Why, if she had a particular liking for it, should the housemaid be denied the privilege of a fringe ? These things are small but not insignificant. They are positive causes in the alienation from domestic service of the freedom-loving sons and daughters of the democracy. Love of finery, again, is undoubtedly strong in many servants’ breasts, as love of good clothes is in the ladies’. And of this love of finery comes infinite evil. But it is not fair to level the charge of plagiarism in apparel against all servants. Some may ape their masters and mistresses, but their number is small, and the constant aim of servants who respect themselves is not to follow the lead of, -but to take a line diametrically opposed to, that affected by their employers. The truth is, the unsentimental side of British character is very forcibly illustrated in the economy of tho British household. Just as it is only among Anglo-Saxon communities that servants are disappearing, so, in Europe, England is apparently the only country where servants have come to see in their masters and mistresses persons to be feared and avoided. The garrulity of the French servant may be exceedingly disagreeable, but it is a proof of that good feeling which exists in France, but has. died out in England, between the lower aud upper class of domestic, if not of economic and political, society. There can be no doubt that the antagonism of master and servant is partly owing to the pretentiousness of the nouveaux riches. By birth little, if at all,, removed above the menial station, they have been the chief supporters of the caricatures on servants in the comic papers and elsewhere, and they are animated, perhaps unconsciously, by a sentiment closely akin to jealousy. They take a despotic pleasure in, as they say, keeping their servants in their proper places. On the other hand, the occupants of the basement may be frequently heard to express their contempt for the 4 jumped-up folks ’ whom they serve, and their preference for families of aristocratic extraction.