out of doors, the kitchen-companionship which all men of any experience will fully alluded to in the above extract is not of recognise. We think that from these prevery frequent occurrence. This, however, is mises some of the dangers which beset our a matter of no great moment. The fact, in female domestic servants may be easily either case, still remains, that young serving-inferred. 66 girls are peculiarly exposed to the danger- Nelly Armstrong, as we have said, formous attentions of men a little above them in ed an acquaintance with a young lawyer's birth and station. In the first place, there clerk while she was still a member of Mrs. is no class of young females-except Elliot's innocent household. When she was that of milliners and dressmakers-who are transferred to Mrs. Maxwell Grey's, the inmore personally attractive, by reason of the timacy increased. Mrs. Maxwell Grey, we care which they bestow upon their dress, are told, allowed her servants the privilege and the propriety with which they regulate of spending on alternate Sabbaths "the their movements. It is not to be doubted, whole day abroad if they chose." "Where that where there is constant association with some of them spent the evenings," continues people of good education and elegant man- this earnest-minded writer, we decline ners, something of refinement is gained to mentioning. But we affirm it to be a sad domestic servants by the contact. At all and startling fact, and one that deserves the events, the natural imitativeness which is notice of the heads of families, that the common to all classes here comes into play; greater proportion of those poor lost outwomen are more plastic and impressible casts who nightly haunt our streets, can than men; they have more innate propriety trace their fall into various habits to the liband elegance; and they rapidly learn to erty allowed them of attending Sabbath evensimulate the gentleness of their superiors, ing sermons, or of visiting their friends on whilst no such progress is made by their that night. But Mrs. Maxwell Grey found brothers. It has been often remarked-so it more convenient to spare her servants on often, indeed, that we hesitate to repeat it-Sundays than on other days. She kept litthat if you observe, on a Sunday or a holi-tle company on that day, having a great reday, a party of both sexes, belonging to the gard for appearances." This, indeed is a working classes in their best attire, you will lamentable truth. It is one, indeed, on be struck by the extreme disproportion be- which we have heretofore emphatically entween the appearance of the men and of the larged;* and we are glad to repeat the warnwomen. The former are far more common- ing in other language than our own. Those looking-far more ungainly in their move- Sunday evenings-more harm is done upon ments than the latter. There is often a de- them than all the other six days of the week; gree of elegance and grace about the women and yet well-meaning people who would not which is wholly absent from their brothers upon principle give their servants five minand their husbands. Now, domestic serv-utes' unnecessary work, suffer them to go ants have advantages peculiar to themselves; abroad, perhaps for five hours, and go whithand it rarely happens that they are not the ersoever they will, on the transparent prebest dressed, the smartest, the liveliest-the text of attending divine service and taking a least awkward, vulgar and ungainly-of all country walk. the girls, in their own village or country These Sabbath evenings ruined Nelly town. These are dangerously attractive Armstrong, as they have ruined many anproperties; and then, in most cases, the other member of the same peril-girt class. poor girls are independent of the immediate The wiles of Mr. Shepherd, the lawyer's control of parents or other guardians; they clerk, succeeded-and poor Nelly fell. We have no one to counsel, no one to restrain need not enter into the sad history of her them. When they are once outside their fall. It is treated with equal skill and delimaster's door, they obey their own impulses; cacy in these pages. The indiscretion bore they are easily flattered, easily cajoled. the wonted bitter fruits. "The ninth of JuThey are of all others the most likely to ly arrived," we are told, "and found Nelly appreciate the advantages of that cleanliness much changed. Her spirits were very low, of person and propriety of costume which her colour and eyes were grown dim, belong to the upper classes of society, but and her step dull and heavy. She was now not to the working men of their own class. often in tears-tears that would not be reWhen Mr. Thackeray in his story of Pen- pressed, and which gushed forth on the most dennis made the little girl in Shepherd's Inn trivial occasions. She was evidently most fall as much in love with his fine linen as unhappy, though she would not avow the his handsome face, he illustrated a truth which grave didactic writers have insisted upon in a more authoritative strain, and England." * See No. XXXIII., Article—“Village Life in Domestic Service-Nelly Armstrong. our purpose. 105 cause of it. No longer did she steal down the saintlike charity, the heroic courage of to gossip with her fellows and have a share Mary Elliot rescued her from a state worse in any amusement that might be going on than death, is told, as only a woman, and among them; sad and solitary she sat and that a most true-hearted woman, could tell worked in the room allotted for the purpose, it, in these pages. though her trembling fingers could sometimes ill guide her needle. A letter from home after the manner of men we throw it aside. The book has served kept her crying one half the following night. But it has not passed out of our hands with We have done with it-so As to her correspondence with her friends, it a bad name. was much less regular than it used to be. strong's" character is Nelly could not endure to write. Strange before. We trust that " significant nods, winks, and surmises began Nelly Armeven better than to be exchanged by the other servants concerning her. parents seemed to agonize Nelly, as well as the Any remark about her mention of her lover's name. stated after this that she was about to beIt need not be come a mother. Mrs. Elliot and Mrs. Maxwell Grey, would To couple together two such people as something worse than a blunder. be manifestly wrong. It would, indeed, be from over-conscientiousness and over-scrunot to be denied that both erred-the one But it is ness and unscrupulousness-and that the pulousness; errors of both were grievous in their influ the other from unconscientiousstrong. In these two very different persons ences upon the life of poor Nelly Armwe see personified the two great classes into are numerous minor varieties and modifica which employers may be divided. There tions-but under one or other of these two who may not fairly be ranged; those who classes there are few masters and mistresses set too strict a watch upon their servants, who do not sufficiently take account of the wants and weaknesses of poor humanity, and exact from imperfectly educated young people such an amount of forbearance and self-denial, of patience and courage, as might with difficulty be acquired in a col After a while a fellow-servant,-"No spy so acute and dangerous as an irritated and experienced fellow-servant". truth to her mistress. Mrs. Maxwell Grey reveals the is of course indignant in the extreme, as such people commonly are. happen," she exclaims, "in a well-regulated "Such a thing to family like mine. I am quite ashamed to think of it." kindness, endeavours to intercede for the Her daughter, with girlish wronged one; and then Mrs Maxwell Grey is of course ashamed of her. The fiat is, that Nelly Armstrong should pack up her things and go instantly. Miss Grey suggests that perhaps she has no friends in the neighbourhood; but the virtuous mistress of the household silences her by saying "Nonsense! such people always have friends. Ilege of martyrs and saints; and those, on have nothing to do with that. But I will not encourage such immorality by permitting her to remain another hour under my roof." And so Nelly Armstrong is paid her wages, right to a fraction, and cast adrift on the world. the other hand, who leave the weaklings entirely to themselves, never counselling them, never restraining them, but with the coolest and most contemptuous indifference leaving them to sink or swim. In the one No one seemed to sympathize with her strait waistcoat; in the other it is allowed case human nature is put violently into a in her sorrow, bitter at it was, save the old free scope and exercise to run into any excescook, who "grasped Nelly's hand with ses and play any fantastic tricks. We need real feeling," and said to the man-servant, not say that between these two extremes whom she met as she turned away, are ye snickering at, ye loon? Is it any- But some how or other these means, called "What there is a mean and not a narrow one.thing to laugh at to see a puir creature"golden," not less for their rarity than for thrown that way on the world? I dare say their preciousness, are seldom preserved that if ye had your deservings, you wouldna even by people virtuous, and in a manner, be lang here either." And so Nelly "found herself outside of that gay mansion which she had so desired to enter-from which she was now expelled in disgrace." Of the subsequent history of Nelly Armstrong we cannot speak. The reader who would know what were the bitter sufferings of the poor and to the second volume of this most touching much-injured girl, must turn narrative, How she seemed to be at one time on the brink of irretrievable ruin, until wise. What a happy world it would be if nition of the responsibility of employers. parents to them; they have left father and take a dish of tea in the kitchen, there is no mother to follow us, and it is our duty in end to their lamentations and revilings. some sort to supply the places of those The unfortunate girl is denounced in the early and best friends. We must do this harshest language; she is impertinent and as much by considerate kindness as by immodest, bold and artful-perhaps sho wholesome restraint. It cannot be too often loses her place. How much better, under repeated that a servant girl on taking a such circumstances, would it be for the mis"place," does not bind herself to discard all tress of a household to endeavour to win the the instincts and appetences, and to smother confidence of her domestics, and to be the all the affections of humanity. She does depositary of their most cherished secrets? not cease to be a woman, because she wears Why a comely parlour-maid, or housemaid, an apron and a cap, and receives twelve or even a buxom cook, should not receive guineas a year from her employers. It is the honest addresses of a worthy young assumed that she has inclinations which it man, and, in due course, have the banns is neither irrational nor immoral to gratify put up in the parish church, we cannot by in moderation. We may be sure that it is any means conjecture. They do not vow utterly vain to endeavour to suppress all themselves to perpetual celibacy when they these instincts, and that nature will have advertise for a place. But we know very way in secret, if not before our eyes. We well that the concealments forced upon them have heard people say, "Oh, I know that by the harsh, grudging spirit in which too such and such things must happen; I cannot often the gratification of their natural in help them, and I do not care so long as they stincts is regarded, are laden with a world are not brought before me." There is a of evil. It is a melancholy fact, that a very sort of tacit compromise indeed; but of all large proportion of the unhappy young women things in the world these compromises are who are tried every year in our criminal the most mischievous and inexcusable.- courts for the murder of their illegitimate There are doings which only become wrong children, are domestic servants. This is not to when they are covert. Why then should be attributed to the peculiar depravity of the we make wrong? To say "You shall not do this or that" may be injudicious-may be tyrannical; but to say in effect, "Do what you like, so as I do not know it," is to hold the candle to Satan, and actually to create vice. class, but the peculiarly disadvantageous charcter of their social environments. How much of it comes out of those three wellknown words, "No followers allowed," it is difficult to say. If young women are afraid of their admirers being seen within the shadow of their own rightful homes, they will meet them abroad, where no restraints and impediments exist, and the tempter Opportunity, is at their elbow. It is hard to calculate the amount of practical evil that comes out of these concealments. If we admit, as every rational person must admit, that our domestic servants, like other people, must have friends and de- There are other terrible things, too, which sire to associate with them, is it not far bet- come out of this want of "familiarity," we ter that it should be an understood thing be- use the word advisedly, between the em tween the employer and the employed, that ployer and the employed. What is it that the latter should be visited at seasonable peoples our streets at night with so many hours, by respectable relatives and friends, degraded outcasts? A very large number and that even if there be something more of those who ply the wretched trade from than mere common acquaintance, it should which their inmost souls shrink in abhornot be a thing denied? Why is not Ruth, rence, and from which they would thankfulor Kate, or Fanny to have her "followers," ly extricate themselves if they could, have as well as Miss Amelia Maria, after whom been domestic servants. It would be inCaptain Sabretasch is always dangling, or structive to ascertain how many of these Mrs. Plumb, the wealthy widow, who is have been ruined by the injudicious harshperseveringly "followed" by the Reverend ness of their employers. A poor girl led Isaac Pew? Amelia Maria expresses her astray by temptation, commits some venial horror of followers, even to the Captain offence and is dismissed. Like Nelly Armhimself, and the widow lives in a state of strong, she is cast adrift suddenly on the excitement regarding them, which seems world, and, perhaps, she has no friends to likely to shorten her days. If one of their whom to betake herself. With perhaps onpretty serving girls has been shaking her ly a few shillings in her pocket, she is left to cherry-coloured ribands, at the back gate, as the carpenter's son goes by after his day's work, or has actually had the audacity to invite the grocer's assistant to sit down and shift for herself in a large town, where there are ever sure to be panders of the worst kind prowling about, and seeking whom they shall devour. This is a common evil. It is a wickedness against which the authoress of instructed. It must be admitted, too, that Nelly Armstrong indignantly protests. She they are often very unthrifty-unthrifty of says, and she says truly, after tracing in a few expressive sentences the downward career of a dismissed serving-girl, other's goods, unthrifty of their own-that they seldom care to save their master's money, and that they very foolishly squander their own on articles of finery, which rarely have any other effect than that of marring the comeliness of their personal appearance. But some at least of these are faults which belong very much to their posi tion, and which if they are not created, are strengthened by the failures and short-comings of their employers. Others, doubtless, are the results of previous training-that dreadful training of the streets, the evil influence of which every master and mistress of a household should thoughtfully and Let us "And this, madam, is your work! yet you are a woman highly esteemed in society; mothers quote you to their daughters as a model of propriety, of severe irreproachable virtue, nay, of active benevolence. Year after year, with comfortable self-approval, you behold your name enrolled among other subscribers to Magdalene asylums, and shelters for the outcast and profligate. Woman! little do you dream of having been instrumental in fashioning an asylum for them. You did not anticipate the consequences, I grant you, when you turned your servant from your door, without doing her the justice of listening to her trembling explanation; but it is earnestly endeavour to counteract. as truly yours as if you had planned it. Listen talk as we may of the vices of the poor, and to what the Great Master says: For if ye for- thank God that we are not as these paupers give men their trespasses, your heavenly Father-but the vices of the poor are the disgra will also forgive you; but if ye forgive not men ces of the rich, and DIVES is answerable for their trespasses, neither will your Father for- the very abominations from which he turns give your trespasses.' We do believe that if mistresses were more aware of the dread- away with expressions of disgust. ful consequences that often flow from rigorous It is not our wont to take one-sided views severity towards their domestic servants, such of such questions as this. Inasmuch as we things would seldomer happen. To discharge are writing now principally for the perusal a servant suddenly from her situation, unless of employers, we have discoursed chiefly upfor some very aggravated offence, is wantonly on the manifest obliviousness of their re to expose her in many cases to great danger, sponsibility, which is one of the crying Oh! we have great responsibility laid evils of the times. Their responsibility is upon us! A few reproving words, a little timely far the greater, for more is required from admonition, might, perhaps, in many cases, prevent a repetition of faults, and might be the those to whom more is given; and from the means of saving poor girls from lives of debauch- higher, not from the lower, are we to look ery and deaths of horror." for the first example of self-reform. But we do not close our eyes to the fact, that this We complain," continues the writer, subject of domestic service is very lightly "of the carelessness, ingratitude, and low regarded by those whose birth-right it is morality of our servants; but may we not to serve. It is supposed that nothing else is ourselves be to blame for this?" May we required, before a young girl enters a famnot?-indeed are we not? Our servants ily as a cook or a housemaid, than that she are very much what we are pleased to should obtain a place." In some few inmake them; but, in most cases, we leave stances she may have held a subordinate them to make or to unmake themselves. We situation, as a kitchen-maid, or an under do not mean to say that they are blameless house-maid, in a large establishment, where we do not mean to say that there are not there are graduates in each class of service; some instances of kindness being unrepaid- or she may have, perhaps, been a household of earnest teaching being thrown away. drudge, a maid of all-work, and learnt Doubtless, too, servants are troublesome a little of all kinds of service; but as a provoking; they are often thoughtless, often general rule, any kind of preliminary trainheadstrong. They are sometimes untruth-ing is supposed to be entirely superfluous, ful in word-dishonest in act. They have and thousands obtain places who are totally seldom or never a high sense of honor; incompetent to perform the duties of their they are almost always extremely curious. situation, without injury both to the patience They are very prone to play the part of and the property of their employers. The spies listeners at doors, and readers of let- "incompetency," indeed, of our domestic ters not their own. In a few words, it may servants is not, on the whole, a groundless be said of them, that they are imperfectly complaint. In an artistic sense a large educated, and have not as clear a perception proportion of them are lamentably bad. either of conventional propriety, or abstract They do not know how to keep a room right and wrong, as though they had been clean, or to serve up a dinner-and, what is more tenderly reared and more carefully worse, they do not care to know. Igno rance, too, is for the most part arrogant and self-sufficient; and the most incompetent servants are the most unwilling to learn. They will tell you sometimes, if you put a manual of instruction into their hands, and tell them that they may derive some useful hints from it, that they do not see any thing in the book-that there is nothing there they did not know before. It is no uncommon thing for servants to go on, from year's end to year's end, in the same routine of household work, gathering no improvement from practice, adding nothing to their experiences; and mistresses will often say that they dislike interfering with their servants, especially in the way of instruction, as every effort to improve their attainments is resent ed as a reflection upon their general capacity. We know that it requires some firmness and some tact to deal successfully with servants as with children; but if we are never to do what is unpleasant to us, we shall very rarely succeed in doing good. than this elevation of the class, "Domestic Servant," in the social scale. For to make our meaning somewhat more clear-it is an unfortunate fact, that there is, in these times, a growing inclination among respectable people-the better classes of our poorer neighbours, such as the small tradesmen in our country towns and villages-to endeavour to obtain for their children "something better than domestic service." If the matter were rightly understood-if the relationship between the employer and the employed were properly regarded and conscientiously maintainedthere could be nothing better for them than Domestic Service. But, now-a-days, the wives of such small tradesmen, or better class operatives, as were formerly eager to obtain for their daughters situations in good families, bring them up with higher notions, and prepare them to become governesses, nursery governesses, companions to ladies, "young-ladies" in large dress-making or millinery establishments, or shop-girls in town or country where they are called "Miss." There is not one of these who does not endure much greater suffering and privation, and who is not more entirely and more distressingly a servant than any lady's maid, house-maid, or cook in a gentleman's house. Besides in such capacities the chances of employment are infinitely less. The degradation is certainly not in the work itself. If there be any, it must lie in the prestige that attaches to it. The fact is, that these household duties are seldom seriously regarded as things to be learnt. A knowledge of them is supposed to come by instinct; it is not considered necessary to serve an apprenticeship to such a trade. This is the old belief-the old practice with which we have been for too many years contented. But we see some hopeful assurance of a better state of things in prospect. Industrial education of all kinds is visibly on the ascendant. The age is eminently a practical one. The Institution of Servants' Training Schools, which And perhaps, as long as any one, however has been attempted with some success, with- ignorant, however untrained, however unin the last few years, is a movement in the disciplined, is considered "good enough for right direction, from which the happiest re- a servant," something of this evil prestige sults may be anticipated in the fullness of will attach itself to the occupation. A retime. There is a practical difficulty, we cent writer, in a cheap popular periodical, fear, in the way of the general establish- distinguished not less by its literary ability ment of such schools. They are necessarily than its earnestness in the cause of social somewhat costly, and can only be estab- reform,* has spoken of the Great University lished at first on a large scale in central sit-in which so many of our household servants uations. We have heard of attempts to in-graduate; and that University is the street. stitute village schools of this description, It is a great thing doubtless to transfer an which have broken down under the burden unhappy child from the streets to any de of excessive expenditure. Perhaps, when cent house, in which she can obtain a situa the subject comes to be better understood, tion even as a household drudge. It is betthis difficulty may be overcome. In the ter that she should live in such painful meanwhile, such institutions, as that for ex- drudgery, as "the Marchioness," in Charles ample at Finchley, in the neighbourhood of Dickens' story, than that she should grow up London, are worthily fulfilling their mission, among thieves and prostitutes, and become if they only proclaim the fact that Domes- both, almost before she has entered her tic Service is something to be learnt. This teens. We would not, therefore, close any is to elevate the class of domestic servants door of honest occupation against the chilby publicly recognising the importance of dren of the streets. But to elevate Domesthe duties which they are called upon to tic Service into something more of an art perfom. And we do not know anything more likely to supply a remedy for many of the evils on which we have commented, *We need hardly mention Mr. Dickens' "Household Words." |