Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1897-02-11

u0hTG lOuuu III tudb WOTu DaCD0lOE.
Whether this is true or not, certain
it is that the word servant is partic-
ularly hateful to an American working
girls ear. Her innate sense of equality
as woman with any other woman who
has happened by fate to be more fortu-
nately placed in this little contradictory
life resents it most vehemently. She
AYERS proudly ''she wouldn't be any
body's servant, not realizing that a
word is but word and that in making
shirts or rolling cigarettes or selling
goods over counter she is really serv-
ing an employer and is in that sense a
servant.
The word is unfortunate, and one
more suited to soothe ones self esteem
should be selected. The term "domes-
tic' is employed by some considerate
people who make nice distinctions, or
the term 'houseworker'' for one in gen.
eral service, and those having special
departments are named accordingly, as
a cook, housemaid, etc. When "serv.
anti is entirely tabooed, perhaps our
American girls will look more kindly
on domestic service.
Almost every housekeeper gets wrin-
kles in her brow when she talks on the
servant question.
"I'm afraid, downright afraid, to get
attached or feel safe and comfortable
with any woman employ" a young
matron asserted recently in the rooms
of woman's club. "You don't know
when you have her. You don't know
what she may object to. You don t know
but that, with the sweetest smile on her
face, she is planning, without any con-
science. to leave you in the lurch if it
suits her purpose to do it. The only
time realize fully what American in
dependence means is when analyze my
servants attitude to me- They are al
ways foreigners, but they become red re-
publicans before they know the lam
guage. r
Yet these people are not SO in their
own lands, said another. "Look at the
Irish, who are considered the most quick
tempered people, born insurrectionists
and all that sort of thing as we know
them here. But the women and men in
domestic service in Ireland have man
ners that charm you and make life
worth the living, besides understanding
courtesy in its truest sense as thorough
ly as duchess should-and sometimes
doesn't. 1t is the same in other Euro
pean countries. Why is it that this
great, broad land of ours, this beautiful,
free, soul satisfying country, should be
the only one where mistress and serv-
ant stand always on the defensive
against each other?p
"A wrong idea of equality" said
one.
''They expect too much of America, "
said another.
They come here to make money and
find the market of domestic service de-
spised by Americans and therefore en-
tirely in their own hands. What wonder
they abuse it?''
A little woman all in black, who had
sat stirring her iced tea thoughtfully,
now looked up brightly and said (by
the way, why is it always the little
women who utter the most emphatic
truths and hit the nail on the head):
Don't you think some of the faults
lie with us? These foreigners who were
servants worth having in their native
lands come here to different condition
of affairs altogether. At home they were
brought up for domestic service, just as
their mothers had been before them.
Times without number you find the
eldest daughter in each generation hold
ing the position of lady's maid. for ex-
ample, to the ladies of the squire's fam
lily. She is understood and appreciated.
She is lady's maid, and she takes an
honest pride in being just as good a
lady's maid as she knows how. While
never presuming to consider herself the
equal of her mistress, she is content
with her lot, has no disinclination about
respecting and looking up to her en-
ployers, feeling that tits for her to sue
ceed in the station to which it has
pleased God to call her, as the cate
chism says =
.'But her attitude is servile, !" said
one.
Not at all. How can she be servile
if she feels she is fulfilling SUCCESSFULLY
her allotted mission here? Besides,
while her attitude toward her mistress
is that of respect, admiration, doeility,
her mistress toward her is considera-
tion, friendliness within certain limits
which the worker would never think of
presuming on. The mistress takes an
interest in her, advises her and takes a
genuine pleasure in the little things of
her life. l remember in Scotland an in
stance with will show what mean. /
happened to be the guest of great lady,
simple, as all we'll bred and truly great
people are. She lived in castle that
held 100 bedrooms, and she employed
about 40 servants, any one of whom
would have died for her from sense of
stanch fidelity.
Simplicity, considerateness, kind
tones, were what the mistress gave her
servants, and in return they worked for
her joyfnlly and conscientiously. Think
Of an American mistress doing this: We
were driving one day, and a heavy rain
set in suddenly. On the opposite side Of
the wagonette from the mistress sat the
nursemaid, with the youngest child. en-
deavoring to shield the little one as
much as possible from the rain, while it
beat on her own shoulders
Dear me, Mary, you'll be wet
through, and you have such bad
throat, poor childl' said the lady.
Crossing, she seated herself by the girl
and arranged her macintosh so that it
shielded both. Service that is no humii-
iation they leave in nine cases out OF
ten, and what do they come tor
This was new light on the question,
and no one answered. They waited for
the little woman to respond to her own
query.
They come TO a country where they
assiinilate only one fact in a wrong way
--the idea Of every man being just as
good as his neighbor. They come to a
place where the working people do not
look up, but where those above them.
desnite the much hoasted equality husi.