THE CHINESE AS DOMESTIC SERVANTS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1630, 26 August 1871, Page 14

THE CHINESE AS DOMESTIC SERVANTS.

This 13 the theme of an article entitled "A Plea for Chinese Labour, by an American Housewife," published in Scrihner's (New York) Magazine for July, The "Housewife's '' name is given on the cover as " Abby Sage Richardson." The article consists principally of an exposition of the tyranny with which the Irish "Biddies" in America rule the households they honour with their presence, and the " plea" is for the introduction of Chinese into the kitchen. We make a. few extracts :—: — There can be no doubt of the fact that there is an increasing desire among the women who have the management of servants and households to give trial to the "heathen Chinee." The great and growing trouble in our domestic machinery arises from want of willing and efficient service there. I am convinced, after much observation, enquiry, and experience, that this is not only the complaint of indolent and inefficient mistresses, who do not know the alphabet in the science of housekeeping, but that it is equally the trial of thorough and wellbalanced housewives, who are capable of doing with their own hands all kinds of domestic duties if they possess physical strength, and have no social requirements which infringe on the time which household service requires. Daily I see cultivated and intelligent women sit down to talk over their troubles with "help "with the very same engrossing interest which we used to fancy was only felt by the dawdling inefficient creature who employed _ servants only to abuse them. Literature and art are often left untouched, while a group of fine women discuss the manifold incapacities of the domestics who infest their kitchens ; while they report, with wondering comments, the invaluable qualities of servants they have met in .England or on the Continent ; the touching anxiety these trans- Atlantic treasures show to retain a place which American helps would scorn ; and latterly, after all this, comes the final winding-up in this sentence : "It is said we shall soon have the Chinese in our kitchens. I hope so. They may be better, and they can't be worse."' In a visiting tour last summer, in the houses of old friends in New England, 1 found in five out of six households in which I was for a few days a guest, that there were no servants in the house, and the ladies of the family were doing their own work' — in every case, not from choice, but from necessity. All had ample means and commodious houses, with modern conveniences ; all had the same story to tell, with modifications. When I returned to New York city, I was constantly reminded of a witty story which appeared a year or two ago in one of our current magazines. It was of a foreigner from India or Japan, who, struck by the apparent absence of Government machinery, set himself at work to discover who were the rulers of the American people, and after filling many note-books and industriously comparing notes, he concluded that the American Government was made up of families, each of which was controlled by a despotic power, unseen and hidden, called ' ' Biddies," or the " Iribh help," which was more absolute and tyrannical than that of an Eastern autocrat. It is necessary to make some protest against the existing state of affairs. At present the balance of power is held in our kitchens. The protest we want to make is in favour of the introduction of Chinese labour here. Already this imperturbable Oriental has found his way as far as into this Western Hemisphere as the shoe factories of Massachusetts. In New Jersey his venerated pigtail and his ivory chopsticks are beginning to excite the admiration of the inhabitants of some of the manufacturing towns. Let a few be imported here and put on trial as domestic cooks, chambermaids, and laundresses. It is true that the vices of the lower and ignorant classes are alleged against them ; that they are accused of inability to tell the truth, and a tendency to petty thieving. But I venture to believe that the mistress is rarely found who discovers truth enough in her Hibernian domestics to build a bridge from their minds to her own, and there is hardly a kitchen in the land which has not a leak of teas and sugars and other small articles, in sufficient quantities to endanger its safety. Besides, it is declared by all who have means of knowing, that these Eastern heathen do not \mderstand the meaning of waste, and that they dispense cleanliness and order in their domains. And if these last-named Christian virtues can . become common in our kitchens, we may : fondly hope for a Utopia into which all the other virtues will swarm.