DOMESTIC SERVICE .

Otago Witness, Issue 2902, 27 October 1909, Page 88

DOMESTIC SERVICE .

mi (Contributed.) The wail of 'the house mother is heard in the land, and yet it attracts ve-ry little attention. If th© shortage of labour affected a factory "it would form, text of interviews in the press and be commented upon from one of the Dominion to the other, "but as it is only a question of domestic service it never gets outside the whirlpool -of afternoon teas. We are prepared to pay a reasonable price- for servants, and cannot get them. The wages of & ploughman are asked by women who cannot boil a potato, and the ordinary housewife cannot afford to pay a ploughman's wages for incompetences. Domesli; service is not fashionable, and the supplyis stopped. The factory offers greater freedom, "'higher social rank." Higher social rank J Car any thing be mor-a absuwl ? The nea£-looking maid, well-trained at housework, holding, an honoured place in the household, more friend than servant, surely takes precedence of any other woman- in her wafk of life, and it is only pure snobbishness that denies her right. If I were a -working man about to niarry I know where I would lcok for a wife. But the rules of. fashion are cast iron, and service is looked down upon, regarded as somewhat de graded, with the resulu that th© housewi'e lias to suffer. If she is a mother with a family, heaven help her ! " I never go where there are children !" "Whether it :e laziness, or un womanliness, or ignorance, I cannot say, 'but. these unpatriotic women would ccc- the race extinct before they would aid the mother who is doing her duty by her country. And they are too often utterly unskilled. It is amazing how women can attain to full ago and remain in ignorance of how to cook a potato or roast a leg of mutton But they do, and, further, they demand at least 15s a weeli before they will consent to display their ignorance, and it takes another 15s a week to cover her breakages. It is little wonder that " servants' a.re the topic of conversation wherever two or three matrons are gathered together. It would be well if we could raise the status of the domestic servant and restore it to the level she formerly occupied, and make her employment more tempting. First of all, mistresses must bo dealt with. Too often a mistress forgets her sex, and works an immature girl as if she wfero a man, while,' also, she feeds her poorly. Such a mistress deserves to do her own work. Then there is the mistress who takes no interest whatever in her girls, forgetting that she stands in the place of a parent; and there is the mistress who follows up her girls with a duster and nags at them all day long. Such mistresses would never be missed. Again, there is the mistress who insists upon being called " the rnistivss," and her unoffending husband " the master." This mistress " rubs it in," and an independent girl resents the height of the pedestal upon which her employers place- themselves. All these employers of labour do their best to make service unpopular and to make girls feel their inferiority. I say nothing about th© caps 'and black gowns, for such constitute a becoming uniform. If w« alter all the objectionable condi* tions of servitude w<j are still in difficulties, for there is an alarming shortage of capable, respectable girls—there is not enough of them to go round, and *c must get them from some source outside- the Dominion. Th© capable, trained servant in a place in Great Britain is not going to come out here, for she does as well at Homo- The untrained liave to be most carefully selected for obvious reasons, and an untrained girl requires much labour bestowed upon her before a return is obtained. 1 do not know what a Continental domestic is like, but they would probably b"e a luxury for a term. We cannot get Japanese servants or Chines© (who are better). The Goa. boy or Hindoo who can read and write does not appeal to me. What are we t© do? The small farmer used to supply U6 with good girls, but he. is now too prosperous, and milkers ar© too profitable. The artisan supplies the factories and shops. Tho labourer's daughter is ambitious (why should she not be?) and prefere a factory to the monotony of washing up. The supply of neat -handed, pleasant girls w© can remember has dried up permanently, and as a domestic is as necessary in some households as butcher's meat, something moist b© don© for th© housewife. .We' must not let our home life go without a struggle, and live in hotels and boardinghouses. I suggest th© combination of, say, 25 or 30 housewives who would agree to tak© their quota — some* one, some two, some thiee — of maids imported fro-n?- Germany, France, or some other Continental nation, all carefully chosen. Imagine the comfort of 'living one© more with neat-handed maidens in one's horn© instead of the crude experiments we have to put up with. I do not like th© idea of going outside th© ranks of my own countrywomen, but if w© cannot get a. supply in our own country we must, perforce, go -outside it.

* Bees' invaded a' kennel ' jn which a, retwever. wis chained up near Bourne,' Lin-©ol-nshire, and when found "by his -owner th<s animal was literally covered by' the insects. They were only got rid of by the dog- going into some water, but he was so severely stung that he diod an hour later. The Ottawa Free Press asks how many Australian newspapers use the Pacific cable to get news from England, and how many London newsf>ai>era secure Australian news by the same cable