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

MASTERS 4ND SERV.4NTS.

(From Punch.)
The plain English of the matter is that servants
are as a class what masters and missusses have made
them. It is true, that 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—when you are blowing up your
stately twelve feet of powder, white choker, canary
cloth, cotton lace, and orange plush, because they
turn up their noses at cold mutton and find even the
" plain jiuts" 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 gowns 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
bekept to oneself than scald-head.
Instead of discharging their vials of wrath against
the servants' hall, suppose people set to work
diligently to disinfect their dining and drawing-
rooms ? How, 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 young Cibber-
wright is groaning over the crumpled roseleaf which
that abandoned housemaid has left in his mattrees,
has he any right to lift his eyebrows because young
Cibberwright's own man is indignant at being put
into a bed without curtains ?

which
ichymouatsceupunvorseerothuonsde
dgilnontie'orutsaabrlmesiceasnofbeflturnkaineyel
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
inissus think nothing of being seen en deshabille by
the butler or the housekeeper. As man, and woman
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
or Mrs. Housekeeper is bound to you by no legal
tie but wages. If there is to be any other bond
between upstairs and down, it must be one of
master's or naissus's making.
The sum and substance of the matter, in Mr.
Punch's notion, comes to this--Tell me what the
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—mutatis mutandis, of course, but
with the balance of light and shade very,vaerradeym, uete
the same. When luxuriousness, show, p
pre-
tension, selfishness, worldliness, and veneer, in all
fashions, rule above stairs, what right have we to
expect that frugality, diligence, simplicity, humi-
lity, faithfulness, and "the genuine article," should
be the staple commodities of the area level.

THE SCREW STEAMER ARMENIAN.—The Seere-
utasrythwrites to inform
the African mail, pub-
lished in our yesterday's impression, that the Company's
oa ft
the the
statement African Steamcontained Shi Companyin
steamer Armenian had been on Lagos Bar, is entirely with-
out foundation. The Armenian arrived at Liverpool yes-
terAay, two days before the contract 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 (one for half-crowns and tho 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 Rotel, Upper Norwood.