The Wanganui Herald. [PUBLISHED DAILY.] MONDAY, MAY 20, 1901. DOMESTIC SERVICE.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 10343, 20 May 1901, Page 2

The Wanganui Herald. [PUBLISHED DAILY.] MONDAY, MAY 20, 1901. DOMESTIC SERVICE.

Thai domestic service is growing more and more distasteful to the young women of the colony only too well understood by thoso who require their assistance, but. cannot get it, oven at rates of pay that are in effect higher than those paid to men for the hardest unskilled labour. The chief reason' of this scaroity of domestic servants is the long hours which' inconsiderate employers ask their servants to work, which frequently extend from 6 a.m. 'until 10 p.m., and occosionaly until midnight. During this long day the domestic servant has absolutely ' no time she can call her own, as if she sits down to a meal she is as likely to be called away from it as not, with the result that she has to snatch her meals in a hurried fashion, as opportunity allows. She has also in many houses to sleep in rooms utterly unfit fox such purpose, with the result that her health soon breaks down, and she has to return to her friends or go to the Hospital. With respeot to the girls themselves, many of them are incompetent, idle, and impertinent, and the ' more so they happen to be the higher 1 tho reinnueration and the more numerous the "nights out" they demand. A really competent, willing girl is not by any meanß overpaid at 15s per week, whereas the other sort are doar at any price, and keep a touso in a turmoil the* whole time they are in it. In a young country like thiß there should not be too 'great a demand for domestic servants, as many families who now employ them would bo much better i served if they did their own work, instead of allowing their growing girls I to spend their time in idleness, and to grow up quite ignorant of domestio work and household economy, with the result that they prove disappointing wives and helpless mothers.

If domestic service is ever to be made attractive to tho daughters of the working people of the colony it will havo to bo gov'orncd by the ordinary laws of labour, and the hours of work restricted and defined, a proper time, without interruption, being allowed for meals. The Factory Act regulations, too, will have to be enforced in so far as they relate to sanitary matters, as many servants are asked to work in kitchens almost, devoid of ventilation

and light, and to sleep in veritable "black holes," little, if* any, better than dog kennels. All these and other matters of a somewhat similar character require legislation urgently, as the repugnance to domestio service, as it now exists, is doing irreparable injury to the future population, ' who will be largely the children of, women ignorant of domestic duties and the upbringing of their families, to say nothing of, in many instances, being the progeny of girls whose health .and morals alike have suffered from the evils of tho factory system, which is now so attractive to large numbers of young women, as it allows them a weekly half-holiday in addition to every Sunday, and to either live with their friends, or wherever else they prefer. As many of them secure cheap lodgings and are free from all parental '■ control, it ,- is little wonder that the number of "unfortunates" is alarmingly on the increase in the larger centres of population, where factories employing female labour are numerous. If things go on as they have done' in the past and still continue to do with regard to domestic servants, it is safe to predict' that these "necessary evils,", as they have been dubbed by irate employers, will in time to come be as extinct as the moa, and the sacred word "home". hare lost its meaning, as people will be forced to congregate in ! immense municipal or State dwellings with communal kitchens and laundries, | where machinery and skilled male la- | hour .will take the place of the neathanded young ladies who now minister to our daily wants in snowy caps and aprons, and where everything will be carried out on business principles, with railway strictnes* aa to' punctuality., Until that blessed day conies the best thing 'a very, large number of the dissatisfied' employers of domestic servants can do is to do without them, and perform their own household duties with the aid of their own family, who will be none the worse of the training they will thus receive in household management and domestic economy.