Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1891-04-09
CHOOSING A SERVANT.
OPINIONS OF SEVERAL INTELLI-
GENcE OFFICE KEEPERS.


A small tow headed boy, with vacant
look on his face, and thumb worn old
blankbook in his dirty hands, sitting on
a short stool before Uttered desk, whis-
ting in lazy, half hearted tone; a small
stove emitting fierce heat in an indig-
nant sort of way, as if disguised with
itself and its surroundings; nine rickety
chairs, set in rows along the walls;
faded old carpet, smoke stained ceiling
and rickety table-these are the OBJ
jects of furniture in small square room
one one of the east side avenues.
The interior of the room is screened
from the view of passers by dingy blue
curtain drawn over the lower half of
the windows. A legend in faded yellow
once gilt-letters over the door and on
the windows announces that servants
may be hired there. This is typical
employment Agency"
A reasonably careful observer will see
many curious things in an hour in one
of these agencies. 1t is always easy to
get high priced help. There is plenty of
it. But the less skilled and lower priced
service is hard to obtain. That is the
kind most of the agencies have to do
with. Nine out of ten of the agents will
tell you that the great trouble in secur-
ing satisfactory help is with the employ
ers. A casual investigation goes to show
that they are right.
VARIOUS OPINIONS.
The agents say that the business has
changed greatly in the last few years.
Twenty years ago." said one of them
recently, "when young couple set up
housekeeping they expected to start a
permanent establishment. The women
in those days were familiar with house
work from their own house training.
They were not ashamed to go into the
kitchen occasionally and give the green
help little instruction. Then, too, we
got great deal of green help from the
constant immigration which stopped
here.
Now, all that is changed. The women
either don't know enough, or are too
high toned to go into their kitchens and
give their cook pointer when things
don't go right. And the supply of green
help from immigrants is cut off. They
don't stop here any more. They go on
out west, where the old way has not
changed so much for the worse. It's
almost impossible to get the ordinary
plain help now"
every few people know how to engage
help" said another agent. "They come
here and talk to the girls for an hour at
time, and they don't know enough to
pick out the one who will suit them.
Four-ffths of the time they go to telling
what I said to my last cook or what
she said to me, and the upshot of it is
they make the girl think the place is too
hard and she won't go, whereas if they
went at it in a businesslike way they
could soon be suited"
Eyes," said third agent, "the ever
lasting shifting is making lot of trou-
BILE now. It's rare thing for a girl to
have place more than q few months,
even when she gives the best satisfaction.
People go to Europe for the summer and
go to Florida for the winter, and keep
house in the intervals between their
pleasant trips. Then they growl because
they can't get first class help. They're
the people that do the kicking. They
want servants to show references for
years of service when they only expect
to hire them for few weeks or months"
TWO AGENCIES.
There are two inside rooms at the place
above described where girls looking for
work wait for possible employers. They
come early in the morning and wait un-
til the Office closes at o'clock in the
afternoon. When an employer comes
the agent politely offers chair and in
quires into the needs of his customer.
He then goes into one of the inner rooms
and looks over his supply. The accom-
plishments and pedigree of each one in
the inside rooms have been fully noted
down when they applied to the agent,
and he is pretty familiar with them all.
He selects what one he thinks will best
satisfy the visitor, and indicates with
graceful wave Of the hand the one to
whom the aspirant for work is to ad-
dress herself. Sometimes bargain is
struck almost Immediately.
There is an employment Office in Sixth
avenue that is just little different from
any Of the rest of them. It is run by
woman, a clear headed, gray eyed Eng
Gsh woman, who was for years the
housekeeper for a well known New
Yorker. Her clientage is almost wholly
among the wealthy people. And the
peculiar part of it is that they scarcely
ever visit her Office. She has whole
deskful of letters which say, "You know
just what I want, and trust you to get
it for me-"
Some day this woman will wake up to
the fact that she has valuable lot of
autograph letters from many of the best
known women of this city, with not a
few from Philadelphia. Washington,
Baltimore and other towns. An auction
sale of these autographs would interest
a great many people and be very profit
able to her.-New York Sun.
A Practical .Ioka