Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1892-12-17

tucu ciotucs On tuein auO q herman TAILOR cuts
his coats and pantaloons more like bags than
anything else. But the clothes Of the people
are clean and whole, and the crowd which
walk through the Th,er-Garten or along the
business streets Of Berlin IL a prosperous-look-
ing one. There il great deal Of money here,
and, what is better, there IL a great deal Of
economy. Every cent that German spends
be weighs before he lays it down on the couu-
ter and he tries to get his moneys worth. After
be has gotten il he sees that the product lasts
% long as possible, and there ia no waste in the
average German family. have some friends
living here who give me some instances Of Ger
man saving. In the cooking nothing Is lost.
The crusts Of bread and stale pieces Of the loaf
are used a. thickening for soup and the waste
paper OF the family is ALWAYS saved for fuel.
Even the peach pits and such bones as cannot
be worked over for soup are burned, and the
German stove is much more economical than
our method of heating. These stoves are ex-
pensive ct the beginning. They are made of
porcelain, and they are often from six to eight
feet tall and from three to six feet square.
very little fuel sufices to warm them, and once
warmed they give out gentle heat all day and
use about one-third the coal Of base burner
and nothing like the amount Of material con-
eumed by afurnace. There 10 one Of these stoves
In each room and room which 10 not used il
never heated. In the buying Of newspapers it Is
notuncommon for half dozen families to read
the same paper and to club together to purchase
IT. They have their fixed hours for reading
1t and journal which costs 2 cents may be
read by six families. The same economy is
used a. to servants. The German housewife
always expects to spend part Of her day in the
kitchen and the wives Of even weu-to-do
men do . large part Of their own work.
Girls OF the best families sometimes are ap-
prenticed to dressmakers in order that they
may know how to make their own clothes or to
direct their making by sewing girls. Servants
are not given the same food that the family
eats, and it is customary here to allow the
servant girl az cents for her supper, and il
there are any extra nice dishes, such as fruit
and preserves, on the dinner table they seldom
go down to the kitchen. The German wife
she thinks she is paying big wages If she pays
moro than 81 a week for a hired girl.
SERVANTS.
visited a big employment agency the other
day where for IL cents you could get servant
Of almost any kind and where for cents the
servant could come and wait for an employer.
II was at the first of the month and there were,
judge, about 800 servant girls in it waiting for
places, and there were perhaps fifty women
moving about among these and looking at their
books Of record. Each girl had her book with
her. 1t was the size Of the ordinary patent
medicine almanac and 1t contained the record
OF the girls service at the places where she had
worked looked at one OF the books On the
first page was her passport, describing the girl
and telling just how old she was and where she
was born and all about her. On the back Of the
book was her name and the nature Of her en-
Ployment. Upon every page was a record of
her service and this was stamped by the police,
showing that it was correct The police re-
quire every girl to have such a book
and a record of this kind must be
reliable one. asked as to the wages that the
girls received and l was told that very fair
servants could be had for from 10 to Is marks
month, or from S2.50 to 1878 month, and
that the servants expected to have Sunday
afternoon OF every second week to themselves.
The servants were dressed like servant girls,
and not like ladies, and they we're good looking,
and were in most cases, doubt not, far better
than girls you could get for five times their
wages in America The manager Of the en-
pioyment agency told me that this was the
slack season in his business and that at the end
OF the year he often had as many as II. 600
servants a day in his rooms and that he was
making money by furnishing servants at these
low rates. He told me that the other Berlin
agencies charged more, but that they had moth
ing like his custom.
THE SERVANT GIRL QUESTION.
There is an organization here, known as the
Housewives Union, which devotes itself TO the
servant girl question. 1t has places for the
training Of servants and 1t gives prizes for good
servants. girl who stays FIVE years at one
place receives prize Of gold pin, which states
tnat she Is good servant, and after she has
been ten years in the same family she gets 10
marks, or 90. 80 in gold. At the end of twenty
years she gets IS in gold, and if she remains
With the same family thirty years she receives
at the close of this time present of 80 marks.
or 90. 1t is not uncommon for servants to be
twenty and thirty years in the same family; and
the Housewives Union Ia doing much to en-
courage good service here, and 1t deals with
such questions as marketing. as well as with
servants wages and servants work. If prices
of vegetables and meats rise the matter il
thoroughly discussed in this association and
If the women of Germany can lower them they
do So. l have heard some of the ladies of WASH
ington. wives of Senators and cabinet ministers,
discuss the question as to whether such an in
stitution could not be organized in the United
States. l doubt very much whether it could |
and our servant girls would turn up their noses
at the promise of little gold pin as the reward
OF ten years hard and faithful work.
FRANK G. CARPENTER