LIFE OF DOMESTICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 15 June 1923, Page 5

LIFE OF DOMESTICS.

DREARY PICTURE PAINTED. SUGGESTED CAUSE OF SHORTAGE. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. London, June 13. The reasons for the serious shortage of domestics was given to the Ministry of Labor enquiry by Jessie Stephen, secretary of the Domestic Hotel Workers’ Union, who was in service herself for seven years. She advanced 12 reasons: Long hours, little liberty, loneliness, labor-making houses, low status, inferior food and lodgings, lack of facilities for recreation, no uniformity of wages, distinctive uniform, arrogance of many mistresses, and the living-in system. She advocated the elimination of dinner in order to give maids free evenings. She said: “I do not see why we should continue the fetish of dinner. The master has a square meal at mid-day. Why does he always expect another in the evening, which means that the maids are not free until 11 o’clock? There are plenty of restaurants. There must be less interference in maids’ private affairs, and no catechism by the mistress, which contributes largely to the shortage of servants. Food is scanty and inferior. Many maids’ bedrooms are disgraceful. Mistresses would not house pet dogs there. “It was wrong to assume that domestics did not possess talents. They were prevented from playing the piano. If they sang the family said: ‘Why are you kicking up that row?’ The idea that servants were a class specially ordained by Providence to suffer the ill-temper of mistresses and constant nagging in the presence of visitors, and a thousand other pin-pricks were responsible for the shortage.”