Fayette County herald. [volume] (Washington [Washington Court House], Fayette County, O. [Ohio]) 1860-1???, 1872-10-31
A Servants Rights.

are worth q great deal to those who
hear them. A little condescension
hurts nobody, and you, for one, have
found that it serves a great deal bet
ter than domineering.
There is something in what you
say, but the tone of your voice when
you say it, indicates that the relation
between yourself and your servant is
not just whit it ought to be. You put
your courtesy on the ground of expe-
diency; you say that it pays to treat
our work people kindly, and there
fore you do it. You have found that
they serve you better if you refrain
from brOwbeating them, and there
fore you refrain. But the way in
which you leave the matter suggests
that il this course did not pay, you
might not follow it.
You call it "condescension." You
appear to think that every kind word
you speak is a gratuity, and that your
maid servant ought to accept it as
something added to her stipend. She
is entitled to nothing of the sort; if
you withhold it, you do her no wrong:
il you bestow it, let her take it and
SO kind a mistress.
Such a conception of the laws of
courtesy between mistress and maid is
grossly imperfect. 1t is not of con-
descesion, it is not of grace, it is of
debt, that this reward is bestowed by
the one upon the other. Courteous
treatment is the servants inalienable
right, just as much the servants right
as are life, liberty, end the pursuit of
happiness. And if, madam, you re
fuse your housemaid this gentle cour
tesy, you do her a wrong just as real
and palpable as if you withheld her
hard earned wages. Your notion that
kindness is boon for which the ser
want ought to be very grateful, and
which must be credited to you as
work of supererogatIon, is not only a
false notion; it is, if you will excuse
our plainness, very vulgar notion.
Not generosity, but justice, is &C the
bottom of all true gentility. A man
or woman who is free to bestow IA .
vors upon others, but slow to concede
their rights, is chargeable with one of
the worst sorts of vulgarity. That
alone is good breeding which makes
an individual careful to respect every
right of his neighbor, his rights of 81
lence and privacy, his rights of opin-
ion, of taste, of idiOsyncrasy, for hu-
man beings have rights even in this
realm. The true gentleman is one
who has the instinct to seem to see
that the tact to yield even these small
claims which his neighbors make upon
him, gracefully, cut of respect to their
rights as individual. Not until he has
given them what he thus comedies to
be their due, will he venture to offer
them favOrs of any sort.
Now the servants right to be po-
liteIy treated is, we repeat, just as alb
solute and indefeasible as that of the
queen. She is a child of the Great
King, and to her applies the royal law
according to the Scripture, Thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."
That law, which is the highest of all,
surely includes politeness. If we are
bound to love our neighor as our
selves, we are bound to treat them eour-
teously, at any rate. That is one OF
the first and most rudimental of our
duties to them. Your servant, dear
madam, is your neighbor-the nearest
of all your neighbors. She has right.
then, under this royal law-which is
itself the spirit of all just lsws-to be
courteously treated by you. 1t is nc
more condescension for you to use re-
spect and gentleness in your inter
course with her, then it is for her to
sweep your floors or build your fires.
You are entitled to no more credit for
speaking kindly to her than you are
for not stealing her handkerchief
IfyOu do not govern yourself in all
your conversation with her by the
same laws of courtesy which you OBJ
serve in your conversation with the
callers in your parlor, you are very
vulgar person. The maid in your
kitchen is woman; the guest in your
parlor is nothing more. Will you
give to silks and feathers and a purse
what you deny to womanhood -? That
is the very essence of vulgarity. Do
not say that the guest never tries your
temper as the servant does. You
know that many of those whom you
greet with smiles, tell lies about you
when they are beyond your sight. The
laws of good manners lead you to
treat their deceitfulness with forbear-
ance; should they not require equal
forbearance toward the ignorant Irish
girl in your kitchen?
It may be that you have yourself
had some experience of service. Many
Of the mistresses of this land were
once maids themselves. II you new
er were in that condition, you can find
in the parlors of your neighbors those
who have been, and who are not
ashamed to own it. Suppose you ask
them how the discourtesy of their en-
ployers seemed to them when they were
working for wages. Ask them if they
did not always feel themselves
wronged by curt and disrespectful
words from those whom they were
serving. Ask them if the Withholding
of this primal right of respect did not
always rankle in their breasts as an
injury. Ask them how they enjoyed
it when their mistresses bestowed
their kindness in a spirit of cOnde-
scendsion.
( If you can not put yourself in your
servants place, try to find somebody
who can, and take his Judgment OF
your duty. Depend upon it, madam,
servants, as well as their mistresses
have rights, and one of the first an6
most sacred of these is the right to
be treated with courtesy Hearth
and Home.
A number of "radical Demo
Gratis" met in New York "Wednesday
evening, and after speeches, &c, adobt