Servant Girls in Germany.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXVI, Issue II, 12 January 1901, Page 76

Servant Girls in Germany.

THE GOVERNMENT IS THE GRAND REGULATOR OF DOMESTIC AFFAIRS IN THE FATHERLAND, AND BOTH MISTRESS AND MAID HAVE THEIR INDEPENDENCE CURTAILED.

lu Germany the Government takes a hand in the servant girl problem, as it does in almost everything else, and it has succeeded in partially solving at least one phase of the difficulty. It has reduced the servant girl’s ■■flightiness’’ to a minimum; she cannot change places once a week the year round. For, when she moves the Government, represented by the police, must know all about it, and, if there is any difficulty or dispute, disagreeable questions may be asked. Indeed, the process of employing a servant girl is a good deal of a business transaction, with a decidedly official tinge. The girl comes to your kitchen and you agree with her about the wages, and she says she will stay. Then you must go to the police station and purchase for five pfennigs (about a half-penny) a white card, or blank, which has spaces for all sorts of information about the new “girl. You must write down her full name, where she came from, whether married or single, her trade, whether cook, chambermaid, or waitress; her birthday and year, her nationality, her religion, her own home, and if married how many minor children she has. where they are and who theii guardian is. The Government always looks out well for the children, and sees that they are provided for comfortably, this being the more necessary because many, perhaps most, servants are married women with typically large families. At the same time that this blank goes in the "girl must also send a blank reporting her change of place. Having done all this, you must see that the girl pays her regular fees to the insurance or death fund, so that she may not become a public charge in ease of her death or disablement. til this ceremony tends to make it difficult for a girl to move about, or for the master to discharge her with small cause. Should it be necessary at any time for the girl to leave, there must be more dealings with the police. The householder now buys a green blank, or card, on which he reports with the same completeness of description the departure of his servant. And there must be no delay in any of these ceremonies, else the police, who have their fingers on every man, woman, and child in Germany, and know just where each individual should be at any given time, will begin making inquiries, and if you have not reported you are taken before the magistrate and fined. All this tends to prevent the rapid

circulation of servant girls so familiar to most English householders, in which the Claras follow the Maggies and the Katies follow the Claras in quick succession. The German "girls are industrious and quiet, they are willing to work for little or nothing, and do any sort of disagreeable task, but, on the other hand, not so much is expected of them as in England, and their mistresses are. perhaps, more tolerant. It may be added, however, that the German "girl" has her regular Sunday soldier or policeman as well as the English girl: that is a problem which even Ihe German Government cannot solve.