DUTIES TO SERVANTS.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13677, 20 August 1908, Page 3

DUTIES TO SERVANTS.

FATHER VAUGHAN'S ADVICE. There wa-s another large and fashionable audience at Farm-street Chapel, Londou, on June 23th, to hear Father Vaughan's sermons to Society. He look as his text " Whosoever wdi be great among you, let him be your minuter; and whosoever will be chief among you, lei him be your servant."

When the incoming tide of the democracy ivas . sweeping aside all class burners, it was well, said the preacher, fur them to remember that servants, both men and women, took aii| entirely different view of things from -what thevused to do.

I Nowadays-girls preferred to be typists, secretaries, • and saleswomen, and he did not think they were to be blamed. They were to be entirely for trying to realise themselves and to raise 'themselves. People who were privileged in engaging servants seemed to .think that servants were jtiiit a s they were in the time of their.fathers. The clay had gone, bv for ever when master and mislress could dictate to their servants what ' they, were to wear, what they were to do, and where they were to go. It was no good living in a past generation, and she was a wise mistress wlio understood how to get. the best out of her servants.- It was well for those who.engaged servants noo (o aesert ' themselves too much, but to make themselves felt without being too much seen. It was impossible to to servants a policy..or a Une'oi-. Itia; they needed a little sympathy, and even a word of. thanks Home mistresses' were afraid to' offer a word of thanks to their servants lest it might give encouragement for the r'eciuesc of an increase of wages—and that would never clo. They all needed encouragement,', and' the servant class quite as much as any other. They needed a little leisure,' and especially a little recreation after the strain, of a house party, when they had been kept more than usually busy.

iingliiik houses, went on the preacher, were fast ceasing to be old English homey. They were more- like- the modern hotel, to which not the intimate friends, not the poor relatives of the. family were invited, but fashionable personages, persons notorious if only in a music-hall. Servants lcscnted -. wailing upon house parlies of that sort, and they looked upon guests like that as "number this" and ''number that," and would not give them names. ''Let, mi' warn you with all the fervour of my soul," said Father' Vaughan, "to be careful about what is said and what is read and what is done upstairs. What are' the rehearsals upstairs often become the actual play in the servants' hall. What books are left-, in the boudoir, poisoning the wells of the hor.ee? If you must read them, put them under lock and key. And beware of the-scan-dalous talk in the boudoir, in the smok-ing-room, in the* dining-room, and take care that you are not murdering the souls of those who 'arc waiting upon you. '..:..

" There is not a scullery-maid or a stable-boy but knows .everything about everybody who crossie the threshold of the great house. ' All that is heard in the household is carried to the tradesmen at ike door, and across the counters of the shops -with which you deal your character is ; dealt out. It is carried by customers to tha man in the street, so that I heai- in clumdom what ought never to have left villadom—the things that are not convenient that are perpetrated, in tho West-end."

The Vilaze Massage Rotten are alse wU bjr'tfaeleading Draggists.