The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-06-14
4 BURNING QUESTION
How to Secure Competent Ser
want Girls.
GOOD ADVICE TO HOUSEKEEPERs
zke English Lose Their Manners The Germans
Are Too Stolid, The Swedes Too
Dignifed.

tFor THE SUNDAY HERALD-Copyrighted ]
/ swear lis better to be lowly born
And range with humble livers in content,
Than to be perked up in clustering grief
ana wear golden sorrow.
HENRY Will
1t is impossible to do much with the art
OF entertaining without servants, and
where shall we get thema
In a country village, not two hundred
miles from New York, have seen the well
to do citizens going to little restaurant on
the main street, actually because they could
not get woman to stay in their houses as
a servant. They are willing to pay high
wages, they are generous livers, but such
q thing as domestic service IS out of the
question. If any lady comes from the city
bringing two or three maids, they are of
far more interest than their mistress, and
are besieged, waited upon, intrigued with
to come and serve the village lady.
What is the reason. The American
farmers daughter will not go out to sery-
ice, will not be called a servant, will not
work in another persons house as she will
in her own.
The Irish maid prefers the town, dis
church.
Such a story repeated all ever the land
is the story of American service.
We have, however, every day, ship ar
irving in New York harbor which pours
out on our shores the POOR of all nations.
The men seem TO take readily enough to
any sort of work. Italians shovel snow
and work on railroads, but their wives and
daughters make poor domestic servants.
The hest that we can get are the Irish,
who have been long in the country. Then
come the Germans, who are now beginning
to outnumber the Irish. The French, the
Swedes, the Danes, the Norwegians, all
come in shoals. OF all these
THE FRENCH ARE BY FAR THE BEST.
OF course as cooks they are unrivalled
as butler. waiter, fooIman, a well-traiued
French servant, man, is the very best. He
is neat. economical and respectful. He
knows his value and he is very expensive.
But if you can afford him take him and
keep him.
The French maids are admirable as
seamstresses, and in all the best and high
est walks of domestic service, but they are
difficult as to the other servants, they make
trouble about their food, they do not tell
the truth.
AS nurses, they are often very good, but
for that drawback-they do not instill q
love of truth into their charges.
An Irish nurse is the most tender, the
most to be relied on. Children love Irish
servants; it is the best compliment we can
pay them. They are not good cooks as
rule, and they are wanting in head, man
agement and neatness, but they are willing
and good mistress can make of them al
most anything she desires.
The Germans surpass them very much in
thrift and in concentration, but the Ger
= mans are stolid and very far from being as
oQpfla and willing ha Trich
keeper gets number of German servants
in training, and thinks them perfect, she
need not be astonished if some fine morn
ing she rises and finds them gone of TO
parts unknown.
THE swEDEs ARE MORE RELIABLE
up to certain point. They are never stu
pid, they are rather fantastic and full of
eccentricity. They are also full of poetry
aud always full of sublime longings. The
Swedish language is made up of eloquence
and poetry as soft as Italian: il has also
something of the flow and the magnifcence
of the Spanish. Ii is rich In picturesque
and brilliant metaphor, and richer in its
expressions of gentleness, politeness and
courtesy. They have a great talent for
arguing with gentleness and courtesy, and
of protesting with politeness, and they
learn our language with singular ease. l
once had Swedish maid argue me
out of my desire to have the dining room
swept in better language than l could
use myself.
One must, in hiring servants, take into
account all these national characteristics.
The Swedes are full of talent, they can
DO your work if they wish to, but ten
chances to one they do not wish to.
Gustavus Adolphus and Charles XII.
were the two types of Swedish character
They are sfull of dignity and lofty aspira-
ton, they love brilliant display, they have
audacious and adventurous spirits, one
can imagine them marching to vic
tory, but all this makes them in
this country ''tco smart to be servants.
They are excellent cooks. A Swedish
woman used to come to my house TO cook
for dinner parties, and she was
EQUAL TO ANY FRENCH CHEF.
Her price was IS; she would do all my
marketing for me, and serve the dinner
most perfectly, that is, render it up to the
men walters.
/ rarely had any fault to find. If | had.
1t was l who was wrong. She came often
TO instruct my Irish cook and made good
cook of her, but had | attempted any fur
Their intercourse / feel that it would be /
who should leave the house and not my ex-
cellent cook.
They have every qualification for service
excepting this, they will not obey: they are
captains.
The Norwegians are very different. We
must again remember that they are at
home so poor, so frugal, so religious, so
capable of all sacrifice, they will work pa
tlently for seven years in order to go home
TO Norway again, to that poetical land
whose beauty is SO unspeakable These
girls who come from the herds, who have
spent the summer on the plains in a small !
hut and alone, making butter and cheese.
are strong, handsome, fresh creatures their !
voices as sweet as lutes, and so obedient |
and good, thinking Of father and mother |
and home. Would there were more of them |
If they were a little less awkward in an |
American house they would be perfect
As for the men, they are the best farm |
lahorers in the world. They have high. |
noble, patient courage-a very slow man
fond Of argument The Norwegian Is the |
Scotchman of Scandinavia as the Swede is !
the Irishman. There is no better adopted |
citizen than the Norwegian, but he lives |
here only to go back to Norway when he |
has made enough. Deeply religious, they !
are neither narrow nor ignoble. They |
would be perfect servants if well trained.
THE DANES ARE NOT so SIMPLE.
They are mercantile people and are ies- |
perately fond OF bargaining. They are also. |
however, most interesting. Their taste for |
art is vastly more developed than either the /
Sweees or the Norwegians. A Danish par
lor maid will arrange the brio brac and |
stand and look at it. To go up higher in
their home history, they are making great /
painters.
AS servants they are hardly known
enough amongst US to be criticised. Those
/ have seen have been neat, faithful and
far more obedient than their cleverer
Swedish sisters.
Could 1 have my choice for servants
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