The Sun.
London, England, 1861-09-11 00:00:00

M4STER&4IVD SERVANTS.

'T TA SECRET AGREEMENT.—The Press of Saturday
publishes "an important revelation, which has been com-
municated to us from an authoritative source," to the effect
that a secret agreement has been come to between the King
of Sweden and the Emperor Napoleon, by which the Finns
are to be encouraged to reunito their country to Sweden,
the Emperor Napoleon undertaking to assist them, if neces-
sary, as he assisted Italy.

(From Punch.)
The plain English of the matter is that servants
are as a class what masters and missusses have made
them. It i. tine, as one black sheep will scab
a flock, so one rogue in livery will taint the whole
servants' hall, but the virus, in nine cases out of
ten, comes from upstairs. Think, my worthy Sir
Apricius de Tabley--4hen you are blowing up your
stately twelve feet of powder, white choker, canary
cloth, cotton lace, and orange plush, because they
turn up their nbses at cold mutton and find even the
"plain jints" of the second table monotonous—of
the dinner served up to you every day, and the fuss
you make abOut it. Think of the position M.
Bechamel, your unequalled chef, holds in your
household, your affections, and your wages-account.
Think of the conversation, the guests, the "walks
and ways" at your own table, and then honestly
ask yourself whether, when master is doing such
daily devotion to Saint Belly, you have any right to
scold John Thomas for bowing before the same altar,
and making his humble offering in the servants'
hall. to the saint whom his master is on his knees to
two good hours daily, in the costly rites of the
dining-room ?
And you, Most Noble Grace of Fitz-Plantagenet,
who stand aghast at the insolence of that creature,
your maid, Minnikin ! Can't you guess where she
got that trickof carrying her nose so high ? Do you.
suppose her perquisites are confined, to your grace's
cast-off Owns and laces—that she can wear these
without catching, in a second-hand
way, the
ailments of the original proprietor ? If you
look on" yourselves as the Sevres of society,
what right have you to be savage when she
assumes to be its Worcesters or best Staffordshire
Stoneware ? If she isn't the rose she has lived too
near to the rose rot to catch a faint reflection of its
superfine scent and aristocratic colour. You ought
to know that sneering is as contagious as small-
pox, and that scornfulness and self-love can no more
be kept to oneself than scald-head.
Instead of discharging their vials of wrath against
the servants' hall, suppose people set
diligently to disinfect their dining andawing-
dr to work
rooms ? How, .1 ask, is Jeames to respect the dig-
nity of labour, when my Lord Lollington behind
whose chariot he clings with his twin colossus,
shaking awfully as to calves, glories in being the
laziest of human beings ? When oun Cibber-
wright is groaning over the crumpled y
roseleg af which
that abandoned housemaid has left in his mattress,
has he any right to lift his eyebrows because young
Cibberwright's own man is indignant at being put
into a bed without curtains ?
Do you suppose those glorious armies of flunkeys
, which manoeuvre round dinner-tables can be trained
to stop their ears as easily as they can to keep
`down their grins and guffaws—that they don't hear
and ponder what the people whose plates they are
changing praise and believe in, and laugh at, and
are interested about, Remember that • master and
n
missus think nothing of being seen en deshabille b
the butler or the housekeeper. As man, and womay
too, is an imitative animal, can we wonder that the
face should be occasionally mimicked -instead of
the mask—the real master or missus instead of the
company one? Remember, too, that Mr, Butler
tieor bMrs.ut
wages.
thereis biosu n
tod tobe yao.ny
ether bond
bY no legal
between upstairs and down, it mast be one of
master's or missus's making,
The sum and substance of the
_Punch's notion, comes to this--Tell me what the
Matter, in Mr.
masters are, and I will give a shrewd guess at the
servants. Show me a picture of the drawing-room
and I will find YOU a faithful reflection of it in
the servants' hall—w mutat/8 mutandis, of course, but
with wants'
ha
of light and shade very, very much
the same. When luxuriousness, show, parade, pre-
tension, selfishness
fashions, rule above stairs, what right have we to
expect that frugality, diligence, simplicity, humi-
worldliness, and veneer, in all
lity, faithfulness, and " the genuine article," should
be the staple comtnodities of the area level.

THE SCREW
STEAMER ARMENIAN.--The Secre-
tary of the African Steam Ship Company writes to inform
luisshtehdatitaheoustrayteemsteenrdt
acyo,s impression, that the Company'sntained in the Afriefla mail, pub-
steamer Armenian had been on Lagos Bar, is entirely with-
out foundation. The Armenian arrived at Liverpool yes-
tbrlay, two days before the 3ontract time, in perfect order.
CAPTURE OF COINERS.----TWO men engaged in
making counterfeit coin were apprehended in a house in the
Leylands, Leeds, yesterday morning. Some base coin, two
moulds (ono for half-crowns and the other for florins), a
quantity of plaster of Paris, a galvanic battery, and other
materials used in the manufacture of spurious coin, were
found in the house, together with a quantity of molten
metal. The prisoners were taken before the magistrates
and remanded.
The Countess of Carnarvon has arrived at the
Queen's Aetel, Upper Nor7ood.