The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1890-04-20
OUR WORKING GIRLS
Servant Girls Who Teach Their
MiStreSSes Manners.
THE WAGES PAID TO DoMESTICS
Lady Clerk Cannot get Room for Love
or Money, Though She be as
Straight as q String.

largely on It's servant girls.
Miss Bridget, with temper so fierce
that the edge must be filed off every morn.
ing, can hack domestic felicity in small
hash and put the family peace into the
soup pot.
The servant girl with her own temper
and that OF her mistress to contend with
has hard row to hoe. Then she has her
beau to care for, and courtship conducted
on the doughtray is extremely precarious
and may upset the yeast of affection and
send loves young dream into the rain bar
rel.
The menials, while sourdly abused by
their superiors. have not always the most
ABSOLUTE faith in the serene loneliness of
the lady of the house, and having the ad-
vantage OF stock of inside secrets, sow
them among other servant girls, growing
very naughty tales that worry the life out
of many, accredited, very good people.
Inc American servant girl with Young
America, having been taught at school the
declaration of Independence, that all men
cana women, too are free born and equal
cannot be coWed down and gripped into
state Of mental vassalage, and will fight
Tor her rights even if by so doing she stirs
up sixteen kinds of anarchy in the kitchen
and sends the husband and wife 20 the
divorce courts to sue for peace. If the
place don't suit her she will tie on her bon
net, toss her nose in the air and try another
place.
A woman that has been born in the
Kitchen, with rosy cheeks and chiuue WAYS.
stands good chance in the west of mar
fylng mine owner, or some other m lion
are, but she is not the person TO take IN
her servants pOnal 10 g
constantly on the alert to enforce dis
tinction that did not heretofore exist, and
IN her effort to raise herself M keeps
pushing the servant down. The servants
quick TO read the manners of her landlalv.
and II they are of the low-bcrn order. she
viii In peevish tone and domineerlng inso-
lence, snatch the conceit out of the lady of
the house by telling her ''who she is and
where she came from.'
This rivalry of descent is often met with
and sets all Difference to ''the superior
LADY, at cross sticks, and takes the starch
out of my lady's fine assumption
But servant girls are other mems daugh-
tiers, and free born, have rights which
must be respected.
They have their own world of feeling.
pride of ancestry, often, and are relocated
to the kitchen, instead of the parlor. by
some tickle freak of fortune over which
they had no control
They are, as rule, and as far as circum-
stances and environment admit. as virtu-
Gus as their mistresses. and because they
work Tor the stipend they receive-instead
CT lnherltlng an annuity-does not make
them any the less respectable as long as
they hold their head above water
Theirs is hard lot.
The drudgery of life falls on their backs
and the feasts at the family table. at which
they are not permitted to sit, only adds
more work to their line of duties.
The lovely salesladies, who bend their
willowy forms over the shop counters and
smile bargain out of close listed wives
the husbands of whom would throw their
purses unstrung down at their feet for one
such melting glance and ask them to help
themselves-havea struggle to get on with
the world.
While all the domestic receipts of happi-
ness are brim full of advices to these girls
that 1.-THE kitchen is the place to prepare for
matrimony," they don't take any stock in
lhem. In the shops they can keep their bangs
up and their psyche knots free from the
doors OF boiled cabbage and stewed onions,
and allows their dear cheeks the color of
rouge without fear of an extra touch of
kettle paint.
Then they like to have their evenings to
themselves, and TO be courted in the parlor
even though 1t be on the rickety sofas of
second class boarding house.
BY some happy Cor unhappy turn of the
social wheel, the shop girl is given higher
place, and in the estimation of the world
can be invited out and attend the swell
dances where servant girl would be con-
sidered out of place. When a girl is lnvit-
ing and has tact she has no difficulty in
getting place behind a counter, and in
deed she looks as pretty as picture in
gallery, and quite as engaging. The shop
girls from Boston to Salt Lake have more
''get III" than any other class of Ameri- |
cans. They VIII dress better. and put on |
more airs than a married woman with an |
annual allowance of Sl0, 900, and the matron |
is constantly brushing up to keep herself |
as attractive IN the eyes Of her husband as |
the shop girl. For class that have to |
shift Tor themselves, the saeslady beats |
the world.
But she also has a hard time of it, and is
forced to her battle with the rest, and her |
greatest enemies are her own sisters. who |
happened to ''catch on.''
w: O. Gore, who does the hustling on the |
outside from the Rocky Mountain bureau
OF labor, gave THE HERALD man pointer
or two of the ostracised saleslady.
"a lady clerk cannot get room for love
OF money" SAID ne, land boarding houses
as well as private families, put on airs and
reply, they are afraid of Them | knowof
three lady clerks that are as straight as a
string stopping at the hotels and paying all
their wages for board because they are
shut out Of the many houses where sgen
tlemen only are admitted
''Do you ind ready employment for SER
want girls?n asked The HERALD reporter
eve try to handle servant girls. but
hon. N.Y. mo- 70 lAn Ial
half enough to supply the demand. Wages
are too smal.''
''Wlll you give THE HERALD the prices
paid Tor different kinds of helpr'
Mr. Campbell, who is the secretary of
the bureau, here referred to the book and
read OH these prices: Common servant
girls In private families get from 81 50 to
81 a week. the average being 50; (but there
are none to be had.)
"a hotel offers s. a week for a chamber
maid, the girl TO room herself. We have q
place for a waiter girl at s. week, but she
must furnish her own lodging. A good |
can have 81 day including
board. but not lodging; pantry girl gets
50 week and boards herself; chamber
maid, 81 with board and lodging The
laundry gives starchers s. a week and they
must find their board and lodging We
have place for dishwasher at 81 a weel,
including board and lodging-this is the
best pay in town.
Salesladies get from s. to $40 per week.
which is. less, if anything, than they are
paid in the east where good board and
lodging can be had for from $3.50 to So per
week.
Women wages in Salt Lake are too low
aud are based on the old prices of board and
lodging. Rents have gone up three-fo
aud wages should enjoy its proper proper,
ton of the boom.