The Vanishing Parlourmaid.

Otago Witness, Issue 3205, 18 August 1915, Page 67

The Vanishing Parlourmaid.

The smart parlour-maid of fashionable London houses has practically disappeared, it seems, and her late employers are left to shift for themselves at their, meals. The joint is no longer carved on the sideboard and the plates handed round to the guests, but paterfamilias carves at the head of the table in the patriarchal way and the plates are handed down, as in less exalted households, and the diners wait upon each other. It will probably bring about a change in the appearance of the fashionable dinner table, because to have all the dishes on the sideboard, as has been the mode, will be much less convenient now that there is no maid to hand them round, and the old-fashioned plan will probably be reverted to of having the dishes placed on the table, whence each guest can more easily help himself and Iris neighbour. The parlour-maids, it appears, have gone to the restaurants and hotels, where thev are replacing the men who have gone to the front and those who are interned. Thev get better wages, and find the life more lively and congenial, for not on!v is there less repression of the girl’s individuality than is expected in a smart household, but in many cases they live out and can order their own lives more freely, and their evenings, too, are more at their own disposal.