THE SERVANTS' UNION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 8861, 19 July 1890, Page 4

THE SERVANTS' UNION.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, — I have read with considerable amusement the account in your paper of the first meeting of the New Zealand Domestic Servants' Union, and of some of the speeches that were made there. The down-trodden servant is a person it has never been my lot to meet either in my own or my friends' houEes. The domestic of my acquaintance is a young woman of great independence, who does not hesitate to throw up her situation on the slightest pretext, or oftener on no pretext at all except that " she feels dull, and thinks she would like a change." ; Now I do not pretend to be a model mistress, but I have Certainly endeavoured to make my servants comfortable and happy. I have neither a large house nor a large family, and as I and a friend, who lives with me, help very considerably with the housework, it does not fall very heavily upon anyone. The servants have good bedrooms, clean, warm, comfortable beds, and their table is in every respect exactly the same as our own. They rise at 6in summer and 7 in winter; they go out on alternate Sundays from 3to 10, and one evening every week. They are never refused permission to go out on any other evening they may particularly wish, uor to attend any dance, concert, picnic, or other amusement their parents or friends approve of, and if they stay with me for a year they are given a fortnight's holiday. I speak to them courteously, and insist upon my children doing the same. They are paid the ruling rate of wag6sK£«.ich gives them more to spend upon themse^'A personally than falls to the individual share.jg-W member of the family (the master except jßpp When I have a lazy 6lovenly servant, \tffout any system, her work ii never done. She dawdles over it all dsy, and goes to bed leaving it unfinished; but with an industrious girl, who knows her business, everything is easily completed by 3 o'clock,: with the exception, of laying the tea-table and washing up the tea things, which certainly does not take mere than a quarter of an hour. This of course only applies to the general servant. The nursa's duties are not over until the children are in bed, though there are many pauses during the day in which she has little or nothing to do; and wheeling a baby out in a perambulator can scarcely be considered hard wor k the fresh air and exercise being as beneficial to tho narsa as to the child. On the evenings my girls do not go out they are generally reading, writing, sewing for themselves, or entertaining their friends in the kitchen; and i£ onn of them has a lover lam more than willing—l am pleased—that he come here. I should deem myself inhuman indeed not to permit my girls to receive their future husband openly, knowing that otherwise I Ehould be driving her to steal out to meet him after dark. In my 10 yeart.' experience aa a mistress I have had more than 30 servants, some of whom havo remained with me a long time, others only a few days. About half a dozen of [them have been girls whose characters h»ve merited the warmest respect and admiration, and for whem I have entertained n sincere affection, but tho majority have been untrained, incompetent, idle, deceicful and dirty in their persons and habits. Not a few have nob [scrupled to rob me, to waste most recklessly, to neglect my children, and to leave mo on the shortest possible notice, or without notice at all at timss, when they must have known it was most distressing to bo so left. When I was first married I used to select books for the girls—generally novels I had read and liked myself, and knew to ba pure and healthy in tone—but I soon found that their taste and mine did not agree. I used also to teach them a great deal, with the result that when I had succeeded in transforming a raw untrained general servant into a good cook she generally left nae to take a cook's place at wages higher than I could afford to give. Snrely servants cannot really be so oppressed as some of them would have U3 believe, or they would not lightly givo up a situation whero they are a good deal iudulged, anil certainly not overworked, simply because it ia dull. I find the statements of tho giri who worked 18 hours a day for live yearn, and tha one who got up in the middle of the night to do the washing,'quite incredible. Any one of lay servants would immediately havo given mo a week's notice if I had aske^hertodo anything of the kind; and it should be remembered that untruthfulness ia unfortunately one of the moßt fre-

quent failings ,; of, the class. The repeated changing of servants has been the most serious trouble* of my married life, arid so greatly have I felt the annoyance that I am looking forward with delight to the time when my children shall be : a little older and we shall bo able to manage all the work ourselves, I have read that in Germany servants are rewarded for efficiency, and also for remaining a certain number of years in one situation. Could not something of the kind be inaugurated here ? The question between mistress and maid seems soarcely one for then to decide. It might surely be left to the mistresses and maids themselves to settle. Trusting you will excuse (he length of this letter,—lam, &c, , .'■■■', Julylo. Mistress.