The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1870-03-18
Sons or TEnrpERNcE.
DOMESTICs.


This subject may be likened to that
slough Gin which have been swallowed
up twenty thousand carloads, yea, mil
lions of wholesome instructions, vet it
is the Slough of Despond still"
knowledge of the cause, however.
helps the cure. There is no reason in
the world why American women have
poor help, except the one for which
they alone are to blame. Why is it not
just rs appropriate and honorable for a
woman to cook and wash dishes as it is
worse to do in another woman's kitchen
for pay the same work she does in her
own fornothing? AS long as the daugh-
tiers of democratic government de-
spise the dignity of labor and respect
those who are idly supported like pau
pers, more than those who win bread by
honest toll, just so long do they deserve
all the sufferings that inadequate help
can occasion. 1t is the worst of it that
the innocent must suffer with the guilty.
and those who hold correct opinions are
no less victims. Few girls can now be
had besides the most degraded and ig-
norant, and servants, as class, are con-
stantly deteriorating. The Biddy in
your kitchen is not equal to the Nancy
that was in your mothers.
There is room for reform. The tone
of public opinion must be elevated. The
lower classes must be reached and taught
and christianized. Training schools,
where young women could be taught to
bake, wash, iron, churn, ETC., in a cleanly
and civilized way, would supply us with
efficient servants. Public Kitchens and
laundries, such as exist in Continental
Europe, might be most profitably found
ed in every town and village, and cheap
ly furnish warm meals and clean linen
to overworked and unassisted families.
1t is q good way for young housekeep-
ers to take little girl and bring her up
to domestic service. That the plan does
not always succeed is often because mis-
tresses are selfish and care little for the
lonely child, except to ''get all they can
out OF her." But where mutual rela-
tions of confidence and sympathy are
established, in after years, when her own
family Is largest, and her cares most nu-
merous, the mistress will have an inval-
liable friend and assistant in the girl she
has trained, and who will be familiar
with all her methods and feel an inter-
est in the household veal.
That large proportion of our domes-
tics are selfish, dishonest or lazy, is q sad
fact; but how few the homes in which
the treatment of employers does not
confirm them in seeking their own!
Disinterested kindness will not always
be appreciated or have effect; but the
experiment of showing it to servants, if
oftener tried, would be often and richly
rewarded. The lady who commends
the well-done, and is patient with the
ill-done, and who cares for the physical
comfort and moral and religious well
fare of her domestics, will find that du-
ty comedies with interest. Even hired
girl ought to have her feelings respect
ed, and be regarded not as a machine,
but as human being and sister wo-
man. She should not be turned away
or neglected when sick. She should not
be denied her social rights by forbid
ding friends, relatives, or even ''folIow-
ers" to see her at her place of service.
thus driving her secretly to seek COM
partnership abroad, and in late hours and
stolen interviews, often to the poor girls
utter ruin. Mistresses who pursue n
system of alternate pointing and petting,
tyranny and weak indulgence, are those
who shave most to bear" from servants.
Scolding and fiattery are both unworthy
methods. Uniform kindness and uni
form firmness is the golden maxim for
all those in authority.-RIral Register.