THE TOILERS OF THE HOUSEHOLD.

Otago Witness, Issue 1891, 1 May 1890, Page 33

THE TOILERS OF THE HOUSEHOLD.

Dear Alice, — In offering the accompanying sheets for publication, J admit that I have taken the unpopular side of a very important question. Yet, being convinced that a high-cla?8 journal fully recognises the principle that something may usually be advanced on both aides of a controversy I ask you to favourably receive my paper. The cla«s referred to is one which has few apologists, and, if my remarks Bhould call forth commL-nt trom reasoners who take a fiffereut view of the question it will serve a useful purpose. — N, Q.

Much wonder is often expressed even by sensible women at the deep and growing dislike shown by poor girls to domestic service, and their almost unanimous preference for shop or factory work. Girls who do not see that housework is the natural sphere of all women, and a house mistress the only fitting

employer for feminine workers, are pronounced to be either silly or blame-worthy. The fact that to the woman servant food and lodging are given free, so that money can be saved even after the purchase of suitable clothing, together with the training in house management, also freely given, often at the cost of much patient effort on the house mistress' part, gives so great a seeming advantage to this calling that it is not surprising that some should fail to sympathise with the class in question. But surely the blame I of unwisdom ought not to be laid entirely on the girl workers. There must be serious error or defect in a system which can alienate from their own interests so large a class of society, and it is greatly to be regretted that j a few of the more thoughtful, intelligent i workers themselves do not give some kind of | public expression to their sense of the evil, for then there would be hope of its cure. And why are they silent ? Much is written about them, complaints are endless on the part of the house mothers, while not a single word of justification, defence, or complaint is heard from the workers. Neither does any philanthrophic outsider care to take up the cudgels for them. No Besant, Mill, or Stowe has hitherto lent the aid of genius to their wrongs, or thrown the charm of romance around their solitary lives. Why ? The reply is simple. These toilers hate their calling because they know it is despised even by the class which is benefited by it — the employers themselves. It is not the workers who will ever raise this occupation to its proper dignity; their one idea of bettering themselves is to escape from it. This state of matters will last, and presumably grow worse, so long as employers set the girls a bad example. Take up any novel or story illustrating domestic life in Britain, and you will find that in that country, where ladies are more dependent on their* workers than those in New Zealand, the feeling of contempt is far. stronger. Young ladies who meet with reverses of fortune and are forced to depend on their own exertions try any field rather than domestic service. To follow the very calling they eulogise as honourable and " advantageous for the poor is an idea tha^

never seems to occur to them. No, they esteem it (for themselves) menial, sordid, degrading. A well brought up girl, obliged by poverty to iron caps and handkerchiefs even for her own household, is looked upon as a creature truly ill-used by fate. Servants see this, and naturally desire for themselves some better-respected employment. It does seem cruel that society should expect young women to take thankfully a certain line of life whether they like it or ! no, whether they are adapted for it or no, and endure uncomplainingly the stigma attached to it. And it is most unfair that the daughters of the poor should have so little choice — that they must be born to servitude, a calling in which there is little, if any, promotion, and where even thechance of what is called " a good marriage" is very unlikely to come their way, since it is the case that men hold the domestic servant in no higher honour than women do. Clearly the kitchen is to a woman of even ordinary ambition a field utterly devoid of attraction. The work itself is varied, healthy, and pleasant, which is doubtless the reason why the figure and complexion of the domestic worker are, as a rule, finer than those of the factory hand. Unfortunately, however, she usually has far too much to do, and that is extremely wearying to the nerves. If one woman does the whole or most of the housework for a family, say, of six persons, she must be very active, as well as thoroughly systematic; she must be, in short, that invaluable treasure, " a woman of faculty." When and where, I ask, do girls receive training calculated to render them systematic ? The households of the poor are not training schools of order and method, and it is this defect, rather than indolence, that .causes the deficiencies so often lamented. The hours are both very early and very

late, an afternoon of leisure is a rare and sometimes begrudged luxury ; the run out in the evening a doubtful advantage. Think how jealously the daughters of the better class are guarded, they have other times and chances of recreation than a couple of hours after dark. . Even the Sabbath is often no day of rest to the toiler of the kitchen, while the wages are rarely high enough to compensate for such complete loss of liberty. Under these circumstances a young woman who chooses domestic service as a career must be a philosoper, and who among us could claim to be a philosopher at 17 ?

In these days of technical schools, it is too much to hope that a training school for girls may ere long take its rise in every town, and meantime individual sympathy and sense of justice might do much to shorten the hours of labour, and otherwise ease the yoke on the shoulders of the drudges who, whatever their shortcomings, are admittedly indispensable,