Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1869-06-02
Old Fashioned Servants.

In those days when the Boston stage
office was in Elm street. girls with bloom
ing cheeks came from the pine woods of
Maine, the breezy hills of New Hampshire.
and the green valleys of Vermont, to do
houseworl in the city. They arrived by
stage over Charlestown bridge, and beheld
with wondering eyes the shipping in the
harbor. Westward they saw the spires of
Cambridge, while before them rose the
city of Boston with its labyrinth of streets
and lanes. Down through Union street
galloped the horses, the people rushing to
their doors and windows to witness the
event of the day--the coming in of the
stages-and refreshing their eyes with the
sight-of health and beauty.
The stage coach with six horses on the
run was the highest idea of progress. So
ciety at that period moged at the rate of
nine miles an hour. Farmers from all
F'Down East, )" from the Canada line, and
from Berkshire Hills, came in mid-winter to
Boston market. and there was an annual
throng of red sleighs around Faneuil Hall
In these days there was no lack of children
in the land, and M. d. s and d. DIS did
not feel constrained TO write tracts and de-
liver lectures to the women Of America up
on the baby question. Farmers had
daughters by the haf-score, who could
spin, weave, knit, sew, milk, make butter
and cheese, and who, by hard work from
dawn to twilight, at the wheel and loom,
could earn fifty cents week.
Those who had surplus of daughters
were always on the lookout, when at mar
ket for situations where dollar week
and board could be earned by Jane and
Mary; SO when the girls came whirling into
the city in the stage they knew where they
were going, and what wages they were
to receive, for it had all been settled by the
prudent father .1-
Ali there were capital chambermaids and
cooks in those days, many of whom have
bloomed into matrons during the lapse of
years, and are now sitting in their parlors,
vainly wishing that they could find girls as
willing and capable to work for them as
they had been for others, and sighing for
those good old times when there was re-
spect between employer and employed,
when respect and confidence often ripened
into friendship and affection.
But the times are not as they were, nei-
ther are the servants. The farmers daugh-
ters have Disappeared; we ne'er shall look
upon their like again. The new servants
have come; we never looked upon their
like before.
The change from the old to the new was
like the coming on of an eclipse-like the
transition from light to darkness We know
when the obscuration begun, and many
vexed housekeeper would like to know
when it will end. 1t began in that year
when three men went up from Boston, and
lounged along the banks of the Merrimack,
at Pawtucllet Falls. pretending to be fish
ing, but in reality speculating how they
might dam the river. Their brains were
full of wheels, and their thoughts were
spinning down the current Of time. They
bought the waterfall, dug a canal, erected a
row of brick buildings, filled them with
machinery secured the country, gathered
up the farmers girls gave them a chance
to earn $4 week, and the result of it all
is Lowell, Lawrence, Lewiston, and q score
of manufacturing towns.
It is mystery to know what becomes of
all the pins, and equally puzzle to know
what has become of the farmers daughters
They were in the factories, but nearly all of
them have disappeared. Ireland is tend
ing looms III mills as well as holding sway
in our households.
"Do you know of any American girls do
ing housework in the city?"
have put this question to many of my
lady friends, and the invariable answer has
been: 'NO; not one."
And yet there are some, as have ascer-
t1ined by inquiries at intelligence offices.
OF house servants in cities, about one in a
hundred are of American parentage. In
the country and in suburban towns the per-
centage is larger; for the daughters OF
Cork and Killarney prefer the city to the
country, while American girls, as a rule,
are more willing to go where they can have
fresh air, and where they will not be ccm-
PEELED to climb from basement to attic
several times a day.-Atla1etic Monthly for
June