DOMESTIC SERVICE.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14341, 10 July 1914, Page 6

DOMESTIC SERVICE.

WHY nr ts UNPOPULAR. ~SYDNEY, June 30. The question of why so few girls enter domestic service nowadays was discussed in an address delivered here last night by Mv G. T. Walden, M.A. For every girl who replied to an advertisement for a domestic position there wore, Mr Walden said, tea who applied for a vacancy in an office. It was not a question of better payment. Girls in business were often con teat with lbs a week, and they paid their train and tram fares out of that, while the girl in service saved money in drosses ami millinery. It could. not be unpopular because it was hard work. Many girls in restaurants, stores, shops, and offices, worked far harder than they would do in many homes. Thera was untiling in domestic duties to make a girl ashamed of service. Why was it that when housework had so pinch dignity, so much importance, girls wanted to run away from it. One reason was because donic.-.tie service had been placed on a lower social plane than Iran dues:-, sen ice. The girl was called “Mary” or “Jane,” but if a girl went into an office her employer called her ■•jib-'s.” . To be in service was one of the noblest positions a girl could occupy, and in justice to the girls they should he placed upon a higher social position. Another reason why service was unpopular was because the girls had to work long hours, “if I had my way,” said Mr Walden, “there would he an award regulating their hours and giving them proper holidays.” If they gave servants the respect and honour they deserved they would hear less of the trouble there was to got servants, and the girls themselves would be enabled +o gain such experience and friendship that their homes in turn would he a credit to the race. Thou, and not til! then, the nation would have advanced another stan towards the social perfection for which all were striving.