Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1890-09-13
BUTLERS AND WALLETS.

VI TINS NUMBER superintendent COOK states
the coiored schools will have fourteen.
BUTLERS AND WALLETS.
The Former Arc Always Foreigner
and tho Latter Are Usually Wicked.
Written for TuH EVENING STAR.
- o MANY rich people live in Washington
~ that the butler is an institution here.
AHNo better illustration Of the type can be
~ Found than Mrs. Levi P. Mortor's but
w. ler-Stubbs. Stubs is an Englishman
Of rubicund countenance and Of faithful old
fashioned characteristics. He can be trusted,
as some one has SO happily put it, with untold
gold and uncorked brandy; and the butler who
can resist the latter is indeed a treasure. The
Vice Presidents interests have been close to
Stubbs' heart for many a year.
The buffers lot is, assuredly, not an unhappy
one. To begin with he gets the best things to
eat that the market affords, and these things
don't taste any the worse because they have to
be eaten below stairs. Then he gets his
clothes, gorgeous livery, dress suit and the
cast-of clothing of the man OF the house, and
pretty good clothes these cast-off garments are,
too. He has no board to pay, aud, unless he is
sion from every tradesman who serves the
household he governs Add to this SEQ to S100
month and you can conceive OF the fairness
| that lines the buffers ribs
Every one remembers Mrs. Whitney's major
domo. His salary was 600 month and his
duties were principally of supervisory nature.
He came from Mrs. Hitchcock in New York,
but as she gave him only $50 month, he was
only too ready to be enticed away by a higher
salary.
BIDDING poR SERVANTS.
This over-bidding it must be remarked in
passing, Is a nuisance. You have good servant,
whom you have discovered. You pay him we'll
and you train him in the way he should 20,
when all of a sudden. some acquaintance, who
Is richer than you are, observing what q good
servant he Is. runs him of, as 1t were by the
offer Of higher wages than you can afford to
pay. OF course. he goes.
Some years ago good housekeeper OF bril-
liant conceptions. travelling In Japan, thought
| she would bring back some Japanese servants,
who were so excellent and to whom she only
paid one-thlrd the wages usual here. But her
friends soon saw how valuable they were and
soon found out how little she paid them. and
within two years they had all left her for places
which paid them better.
NO AMERICAN BUFFERS.
Did any one ever see an American butler?
There Is no such breed. Americans would
rather carry hods or break stones than put
| themselves in position where they can be in
suited by tips. But not all buffers take tips.
Out west for instance. they grow moustaches
and become Americanized and the writer met q
young man the other day who had just returned
from Cleveland, where, he said, he had been
thrown into the liveliest embarrassment by the
refusal of the butler to accept the greenback
| that he thrust into hia hand the day he was
going away. They regard themselves as en-
ployes or help out there and they resent being
treated like servants.
AS FOR vALErs,
of the Newport and New York fellows have
| them. The foreigners here use them. but they
are not numerous. They are generally scamps
of discernment, constantly appropriating TO
| their own uses little things Of their masters
which he is apt not to miss or care about.
Sometimes they make regular haul. and clear
ont, as in the case of the valet at Newport last
month"; who decamped with a most carefully
selected assortment Of costly scarf pins. A
man Of peculiar tastes was this fellow. He
only took his masters best pins; he took none
| OF his shoes, but he carried off a pair Of new
tennis racket They collared him on Full
ton forty boat, where he was regaling himself
| with one of his masters fine cigars Few hon.
| est men can live in America long and follow
| this most degrading Of all occupations. To tie
another mans shoes. to put him to bed. to ar.
| range his linen. to do his beck and cali at all
| seasons, are occupations revolving to the man
who breathes American air. But we have them
| and sometimes they are good servants, but
they generally end BY being hard masters.
| nobody can And them but themselves. Last
winter young diplomat here. who had given
his man days liberty, having occasion to
leave town suddenly. couldn't find any OF his
clothes to pack; his man knew where they were,
| he, himself. knew nothing about II, and he was
forced to go away with nothing but the clothes
| he had on his back.
There are some Of us who can remember
how, in the old slave days, it used to be said
that gentleman thought he owned his black
body-servant. but that the black body-servant
| was better informed and knew he owned the
! gentleman The old-fashioned darkey il still
| pretty hard master. Whenever you see .
polite gray-haired darkey open the door for
you, you can put it down az cold, solid fact
! that that household is ruled by him with rod
| OF iron. But this race Of faithful old negro
! servants il fast dying out We are fast coming
to the exclusive use Of the foreign white man.
BUTLER AND HIS MISTAKE.
There ia one butler here, employed by rich
man, and he has the loveliest blonde curly hair
| and q complexion that any woman might be
proud Of Clean shaven he 10, Of course. This
| IL as it should be. Whiskers are allowable, but
| butler with q mustache Heavens, how
could you tell which was butler and which was
bossI Well, this pink-faced, curly-haired but
| Ter knows every single soul III t0wn-knows all
| about them-how rich or poor they are, and
Wuctncr tuoy At0 70 DC treateu pOut6ly when
| they call at his house or not. Some times with
out-of-town people, he makes q mistake.
gentleman Of choleric temperament, coming
here from New York lass winter, callod
upon this household, having become pretty
intimate with the people at Lenox in the fall.
he OF the rosy cheeks and golden locks took the
visitors card and allowed him to dlvest himself
OF his overcoat without assistance, for 1t is AN
idiOsyncracy OF this New Yorker that he dresses
very badly: Having paid his visit, he came
into the hall and, picking up his overcoat, told
the careless butler to help him on with it
science could not be mistaken, that gentleman
Here" said the New Yorker, sprinRiue
4 servant by the chin, "Here, l. you. :" IN voice
Of smoshsred rage-"d- you, help me on Win
! this GOAT in hurry and then call my carriage
| or III break every boue in your body"
| And the butler complied In double ouick
time, too, and At dinner that day he heard he
family talking about tho new conner from New
York, aud describing In glowing coiors the
enormous fortune he possessed. 1his pssticu-
lar butler has been poiiter since then than he
| ever was before.
BY the way, did 10 ever occur 10 the scholarly
| gentlemen Who busy Themselves with con-
| temporary history to consult the servants on
| the subject just think OF the insids HISTORY
| that the butler Of . prominent public mss
hearsS Two Senators are making o pclitacsl
bargain over their vine altar dinner. Nobody
knows anything about ikexcspt thu butler, who
stands over them opening . fresh bottle. What
| an impassiys face the fellow has? He hssrs
nothing apparently. but be isn's \ fos,l aad r.