THE SERVANT OF THE LAST CENTURY.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 3026, 16 January 1879, Page 3

THE SERVANT OF THE LAST CENTURY.

Housekeepers in Australia will be able to appreciate the changes described iv Lord Leunox's book, " Fashion :" — " Domestic servants are no louder what they wore in by-gone days. The clas* of valued and valuable domestics, who came into service in youth, and did their best to remain in it until their dotage, is now, unhappily, nearly extinct. The idea of parting from a master or mistress never entered their beads; they elun^ like ivy to the o»k, or to avoid a simile from tiie parasitical plant — like limpets to a rock. The modern notion of 'bettering themselves' was unknown. Bullbrs, like old port wine, were considered to improve by a_fH ; housekeepers liwd and died under tho rooftrew ; housemaid* passed from their girlhood to a vine ag-e in the sa rue service; dairy, Ann udry, ' nurse, and still-room maids wei'n fixtures. Fuotmen were not what miijht be aptly termed 'miming fbotmei),' strhiiii* eagerly after new places; nor were they hired by measure at five pounds five per fo >t per annum. Gardeners were allowed to go to seed in one family ; coachmen never gave up *he roius until they had nearly arrived at the last sfriLje of existence ; huntsmen continued until they themselves wtre" ruu to earth ; grooms were perfect centaurs, forming 1 part and parcel of their horses through life ; gamekeepers 9eldom, if ever, changed their beat ; and buihifs aud stewards seemod indigenous to tho soil, nor did any of the above-house servants consider it ' beneath their dignity to trmke themselves generally useful ; and an answer 4 It's uot my place to do such and such a thing,' would have produced iutestine domestic war."

A young lady about to marry a farmer, said — "Mother Eve married a gai;d#ner." She forgot to add that owinir to tho match the gardener loot bis situation.

It is stated by eminent naturalists that I lie very rots come ereepiug out of tho wooil-pile and laugh like demons when a woman tries to saw a stick of wood.

It's ' rather- liiMJouratfiug 1 to a new >und;iv school-teacher to return to his cla»s of boys after five 'inuates* absence, ;\n<\ hear them quarrelling over which is the best, band —a pair of jacka or a pair of queens. " Cau a man be a positive roan and not swear ?" is the question now agitating the first circles of society in Toronto. There are several grades of positivenoss. There's the positive man, the very positive man, and the positive man, and this seems to cover the case.