Wilmington daily commercial. [volume] (Wilmington, Del.) 1866-1877, 1873-10-04

HOW THE EXPERIMENT. HAS eUoCEEDED-TRoUBLE
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. Win THAN, &c
DO
Tue experiment Of bringing over house
servants from Sweden and Denmark hae
not been unattended with trouble, though, in a
general way, il has succeeded pretty we'll BE
tween two hundred and three hundred. in all
have come over, under the auspices of the par
ties III this city, known as the wilmington
Householders' Association" and sixty more are
expected before the end of November. Twenty
will arrive in a lew days.
Most of these have been Swedes and the
larger part of them are female domestics Gem
erally they have proved very go1l servants.
As a rule, they are not afraid of work. and aH
n lady remarked to us, there was never too
much to do" 1t was never ''tOo dirty or "too
hard" or took too long" They have proved
to be uncOmplalning and perseYenng. The great
difficulty, however, ID that many OF them nave
not kept their contracts to stay year. case
in point is that of gentleman OF DoylestoSn
Penn, who advanced the passage money for two
Danish girls. paying S45 apiece in each case, be
sides about ~ each for other charges. A con-
tract i'll duplicate form Zone L tgi Ia aud ole
Danish, WAS made and signed by the gentle
man and both girls, by which the latter asresG
to ltmin in hs employ one year, at $S pei
MONTH of which "A 70 per month was to be paid
them. aud 70 rs withheld to make up at the end
of the wear, S45. They stayed with him abOu'
five months. and few days ago, without notice
or intimatlon of any kind, ran away to PhiladeI-
phia, leaving Lin out OF pocket the seveh
months advance, amounting to 952 5O. They
had been very kindly treated, seemed to be
quite happy, aud they could not speak word
Of English, their employer had made patient ef-
fort to teach them, procured u ID 4nsh news
paper for them, &c.
Ihis, however, is but ono of many similar
cases. large number of them have left their
employers, without serving The full year. The
Danes, it has been remarked, are worse in this
respect tuan the Swedes, but on the other hand
many OF tue former have stayed very faithfully,
Alr Belts. the manager OF the ASSOCIATION,
thinks the young girls less liable to br, ak con.
tract than tue older ones. The Danish Consul
in Phil delphiA, being consulted on the subject
rad the runaways had given hlLn an immense
deal ut trouble, as many employers came to hln
to try TO get them back. lie says the Danlsl
Government does not regard the expectation OF
it's work people with favor, and he expresses
the opinion that the Swedes who have CONT
over are Leuelally Of better class than tie
Danes.
A large number, however, of those who have
been engaged and had thar passage money ad
NAuced, have stayed out their contract. Perhaps
half have done So. Some oi the hrst who cain'
finished their year and are still at the SAINT
places Quite number remain about Middle
town. to Which locality the nrst colony CANT
Learly eighteen months ago. The trouble ha
been mostly made by meddling persons who per
suaded the girls that they could got higher wages
4 DANISH woman who keeps Philadelphia III
telligeuce office and Swedish Theological stu
dent, who WAS for some in this city, ar especial
ly charged with fomenting mischief. VI course
vixen a contract WAS made, it was the duty o
both parties to keep it, but the wages paid, y
per month, are "a very fair rate. in consld
Grafton of the fact that they know nothing OF ou
language or methods, and everything has to D.
taught them.
Making all allowances for trouble, however
this class OF domestics are regarded as very dc
sirable aud it is likely many more viii De secur
cd, affecting, in no sm III degree, the qnahtlyy
qu atty AID price OF domestic service IN tnl
country