THE SERVANT GIRL DIFFICULTY.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXII, Issue XXI, 27 May 1899, Page 744

THE SERVANT GIRL DIFFICULTY.

AKE CHILDREN AT THE BOTTOM OF IT? James Buckham, in the ‘Kitehen Magazine,’ writes some very sensible words on ‘the servant problem.’ In coinersing' with a sensible lady on the subject he was struck with her assertion, which she was ready to confirm with known instances, that ‘ninetenths of the trouble with servants eanie from the tyranny of ill-bred children.’ Taking note of families that seemed to be permanent clearing houses for servants, where no girl ever remained more than a few weeks, and noting also that these families all contained children more or less spoiled, she was led to conjecture that the children had something to do with the dissatisfaction of the servants. And further observation, when visiting at these houses, of the manners of these children toward the servants confirmed her in this belief.

Mr Buckham then goes on to chronicle the result of his own observation, thus:

I have followed up Mrs S.'s theory concerning the chief cause of the mobility of servants with some inquiries on my own part, which seem highly confirmatory. The mother of a. family of five, two boys and three girls, told me that she had had nine different servants during the year, but couldn’t seem to find one of the horrid creatures who had any affection for children. In other respects the servants were satisfactory, and their only complaint seemed to lie that they couldn’t get along with the children—dear little things. How incomprehensible it is that servants should have no heart!

I learned from the father of another family, who had just brought from the intelligence office his sixth cook in tour months, that he was about discouraged with housekeeping, and contemplated taking rooms in a city hotel for the winter.

‘Our domestics can’t get along with the children.’ he said, disconsolately.

‘Why not?’ I asked. ‘Don’t the children treat them politely?’ •Politely!’ exclaimed paterfamilias, amazed and indignant. ‘I should like io know what politeness has to do with it? We don't bring up our children to show off their manners to Hie servants.’

Ah! thought I. that is it—manners. Vast is the difference between manners and true courtesy, between the grace of the heart and the grace of tin body. It is manners about which modern society is chiefly concerned.

Put a truce to moralising, in behalf of testimony. To be brief and comprehensive with this also, out of fifteen families of whom I had the temerity to seek the reason of a common disagreement with servants, ten a.-sured me that the cause of complaint was invariably the children. And in every instance 1 am satisfied from what I know of the families it was the unconfessed misbehaviour of the children that drove away the servants. The fault is rarely on the other side, and even then, 1 believe, not wholly without provocation. The fault in this matter lies plainly with the parents. It is the parents' treatment of. or attitude toward, the servant that prompts the child to a ruder, more overt, and tormenting tyranny, that in time becomes unbearable, and simply drives away any self-respecting domestic. I am convinced that there is much to be said on the submerged side of this question of domestic service—more, at least than is commonly admitted by writers for the press. The inconsiderate and petulant ami unrebuked tyranny of the average child over the household servant is the natural outcome of the lack of esteem and the

indifference of the parent. The child’s contempt for the servant is harsh, open, and intensely irritating, while the mistress’s and mother’s is veiled, covert, and indirect. The child accurately reflects the mother’s vulgar and unlovely snobbishness, however, and the servant knows it. So the child’s ill-breeding makes a good excuse for escaping the mother’s. The fault and Ihe blame really belong with the employer, and not the employed. The situation simply becomes intolerable to the latter, and the more so in proportion to her own good breeding and nobility of heart. She leaves in reality because she is driven away, though the scourge that drives her is so insidiously fine and concealed that society in general does not perceive it. But it is a whip of nettles, nevertheless, and she does well to put herself beyond its sting.

Not until there is a new standard of goi.d breeding in the average colonial family, I believe, will the servant problem become less strained. The tyrannical child, who ostensibly drives away so many good domestics, is only the positive exponent of the negatively tyrannical mistress and master. With the child’s customary frankness he expresses freely what the attitude and disposition of his parents merely imply. He is like the sore that betrays the impurity of the blood. There is something wrong in the treatment of the average domestic servant by the average colonial family; and the ill-bred, tyrannous, abusive child is the unwitting betrayal of this fact.