The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1889-07-05
GERMAN SERVANT GIRLS.


GERMAN SERVANT GIRLS.
| Why They Are E1ssperatins and What
Makes Them Admirable.
The German servant girl has no
bangs, nor bangles. nor fur-lin ed
cloaks, nor four-button kid gloves. She
is square-shouldered, heavy-featured.
and large-limbed. She is neither quick.
clean. nor intelligent. but she can work.
She has the strength Of an OK, and is
always willing to use it
Most servant girls in German cities
are peasants. Daughters of the poorer
town-bred families usually become fac
tory hands. shop girls, or mattresses.
The conservative peasants, however.
with their old preiudices in favor of
every thing feudal, prefer domestic SER
vice for their children to any employ
ment.
As soon as the peasants daughter is
fourteen or fifteen years old she learns
how to split wood. hoe potatoes and
plant cabbages. She milss the COW
before breakfast, bitches her to pillow
after breakfast and often turns burrows
all the morning under the direction Of
her father. who in the mean while
smokes a pipe and rests. She mows
hay and digs water trenches. During
the harvest she carries great basketfuls
of vegetables from the fields to the barn
on her back.
When her younger sister becomes old
enough to help her parents work the
little farm. however. the eldest daugh-
ter loses her grip on her fathers heart.
She is regarded by him as an encum-
brance. for nothing is more useless in
the eyes Of German peasant than a
grown daughter who does not earn her
living. Therefore, if no Hans o. Fritz
wishes her to be his helpmate in raising
cabbages and potatoes, she must go into
domestic service in the city.
Like almost all novices in an occupa-
ton on the Continent she aerves an
apprenticeship. For several months she
receives no wages. nor does she deserve
any. for her stupidity is phenomenal.
She has never walked on carpet be-
fore. and doesn't know q napkin from a
dish-cloth or a coal bucket from ket-
tie. She smashes crocSery right and
left. She blacks the Hers patent
leather shoes and oils his rubber boots.
She puts the table spread on the floor
and the rug on the table. In fact. she
is as strange to most of the furniture
and customs in comfortable house as
Persian or Indian. She learns slowly
and laboriously. but she never forgets.
When her apprenticeship is up her
wages rise slowly from $40 and s25 n
year to $50. 500 and $40. The girl who
gets the maximum wages is expected
to do al enormous amount of work.
She is often the only servant in Il
family of seven or eight She rises at
five o'clock and blacks the boots of all
the members of the family. She pre-
pares the light breakfast and serves it.
She polishes all the brass and bronze
in the house, scrubs the corridors, the
front steps. and the walks before the
house on her hands and knees. She
carries big hods of coal from the base
ment to the third and fourth stories
She sweeps the rooms, makes all the
beds. and washes and scrubs every pot.
kettle and pan in the kitchen till it re-
fleets her stolid face. She goes to
market with her mistress and big
basket, and returns loaded down like Il
mule with vegetables, meat and
earthen ware. She does errants ali
over the city. gratuitiously for the
family and for couple of cents for its
guests She frequently sleeps in
room smaller than an American ward
robe and without means OF ventilation.
In fact, so many abuses in lodging SER
wants prevailed in Berlin that city
ordinances were passed some time ago
prescribing the minimum size OF
apartments in which servants could be
ouartered.
The servant girl in a German family
of the middle class does not pretend
to cook; her mistress does that Nor
does she wash and iron, as laundress
and washerwoman are called in semi
monthly for these purposes. She does
try to be chambermaid of some
merit. and fails. She washes the floor
and dusts bric-a-brac with the same
cloth She never tucks in the clothes
at the foot of the bed, and never shakes
up the big bag of feathers which she
gives you for coverlet She puts your
slippers on the table and throws Jour
clean shirts into the wash. She invar-
iably mistakes an ash receiver for
German cuspador, fills it with sand, and
rests it on the floor She streaks up
your books by busting them with wet
cloths. and throws all loose papers.
regardless OF their value. into the stove.
According to American ideas, she does
every thing wrong and by main
strength She IS so willing to work,
however. and to learn every thing that
any one will teach her, that American
housekeepers abroad regard her, des-
pite her clumsiness, as a rough diar
mond-N. Y. Sun.