New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1860-05-19
A SERMON TO COOKS.

Nj. Leon G0Zlan has preached, through the rays,
sermon tothe cooks of Paris from which The TRIBUNE
translates the following extracts. With few changes
of names, it is equally applicable to this country:
What incredible carelessness is this The Partisan
never takes the poorest clerk into hs employ at sa-
~ Of twenty-five francs per month, without hndng
out what his antecedens are without finding out his
genealogy; he never buys horse without consulting
several experts he takes all possible safeguards against
impossible imaginary dangers; but he never takes
the slightest trouble to know anything about the wit
nee OF bis private ile the spy which he takes into his
house, the shadow which is to walk in his shadow;
And there are these spies nearly hundred thousand
in this Paris which has the folly TO believe that 1t Is so
well defended.
Lei MS raise the curtain little. Paris draws her
from the provinces of the CENTER the East and
the West Most of her domestics come from Als;tce
and Lorraine poor, iron untamable PROVINCES undis-
cipinable except for war; the Alsatan domestcs are
artlleryme in the disguise of women, to create the
illusion that there two sexes along the banks OF the
Mosele. The Bretons are characterized by Druldc
hlhiness flthness which has been immortalized by
Victor Hugo. And if the Bretons themselves are not
the flower of neatness what must the Breton domescs
be! Certainly they not its perfume
Their morality, If indeed they have any idea Of mo-
ralitv is deplorable The tree has been allowed TO
take the proportions of the banyan. These ignorant
women Who were charitably paid but few years ago
two or three dollars month as servants, now, under
the pretext that all articles of food higher-whlch
does lot them in the leas-ask not less than
eight to eleven dollars month. What is singular IN
this H. that nothing is dearer for them matter how
high rent bread wine meat or oil may be, II makes no
difference to them; they eat and drink the more-that
Is all.
Logically, the contrary should be the case. In pro-
portion as material life becomes difficult the wa
pes Of dome sites shoud naturally diminish. Not only
Is this not So but many Partisan families find it
very difficult problem for them TO provide their SER
wants; in more than one family oughto say in more
than a thousand-he eldest daughter has become the
domestic of the family the expense OF her beauty,
berh and her
number of years, and you will find the social change
TO be enormous. Here are two great evils without
compensaOn. The daughters OF the boHrge0lsie will
fall in the SCALE while The cows OF the Mosele and the
sw inc of Normandy will have nobody to keep them.
Tie passion for luxury, this leprosy Of unhealthy
civilization H. il is true, great element OF corruuton
and decentralization for Partisan servants. The exam
PIE of the misresses is not lost upon the seryants
when there are poor Tonnes who sell the honor OF their
house for the cake Of wearing thousanddoar CASH
mere shawl what is there 20 as,Onlsh us IN seeing
servant steal from her mistress enough to buy fifty
dollar French cashmere. The difference is very slight.
The cook, through the contagon Of luxury, asplresto
become the equal of the tteme DE chdmbre, and the
femme ne ohamLTe in turn asplres 10 be the lady, 80
she becomes iOree The seragios OF the Breda quar-
ter are filed almost entirely with cooks who have made
but one leap from the range to the boudor not having
passed through the drawingroom but only having seen
what il done there.
We pass over that portion which shows how the
disnterestedness Of cooks toward their masters in
their bargains with radesmen extends to and corrups
all classes Of society. We are informed that this pro-
duces but little effect upon the audiences that but few
of them promised TO reduce their populations one-half
during Lent and in short, that the result was by no
means what honest people had right to expect. The
following piece Of testimony proves what everybody
knows:
This malversation is not only tradition among the
generality of donestics it has passed into habit with
them; it is hardened into law. Some years ago
great bouse of the faubourg ST. Honore brought COM
plant agans, it, mditre dh6tel
Among the considerable thefts Of which he was ac-
cused il was remarked that during several years he
had stolen ten bottles of wine per day. And such
wine From all the points Of the accusation the prison.
er defended himself with hess ability, but when
it to the ten bottles of wine per day, he argued
generally with much earnestness and assurance that
The tribunal, somewhat surprised, called in several
maitTes dh6tel TO clear mp the point.
Most of them declared that perhaps the prisoner had
gone little too far in taking ten bottles per day, that
H. about four thousand bottles per year but that in
aity this tax had been for centuries laid upon the cell
lar OF the rich by their ares fk6tek and their prn
cira emDioyfs without the slightest suspicion Of crime
The Court was confounded-but not with admra-
fiau.