Evening star., 1899-02-04

the other one had the<cook for ten days
1 grow tired and likewise disguised, and
fail back on luckund my own guessing to
| guide me in making a choice
The New Cook ahd Her Deadly Work.
The new cook comeso The first meal she
gets-is it any? 'ThsJ family fills up on
crackers, jam, milk. fruit-any old thing
| that happens to be in the house. and for
dessert we gorge ourselves with the hope
that she'll do better LATTER she gets her
hand in. While she Is getting her hand In
I must forsake all my higher aims and
happier callngs t teaah her what 1 don't
know myself about the'trade She processes,
and the family continues to subsst on food
that comes fromO theiI shop ready made.
Finally, she has possibly got so she can at
least make decent cup of coffee when
she gives notice." or quits without this
1ornality. She mas made up her mind she'd
rather do washing, or she doesn't like stay
ing nights, or we have dinner too Late or
breakfast too early, or she resents being
censured for failure to properly do her work
for one idle reason or another she fol-
lows the inclination of her IRRESPONSIBLE
nature and retires with absolutely no con-
Germ Tor my convenience, and quite as little
Tor the word she has given me that she
would be permanent. I must pay her ,lp to
the minute; she has dismissed me. 7 get
no pay for the time l have spent, teach
ing her, and no return of the value of the
food materials she has worse than wasted
for she has introduced her deadly com,
pounds into our bodies; am left to fill her
place as may or take it myself and 7 am
again put to the expense of advertising and
feeling employment agencies
government bureau acting as eo-be-
tween for domestic labor wanted and
in want might operate to make a
domestic's experience in one place count
for or against her in securing another
place. By imposing fine on every one Civ
Ing a recommendation to a domestic who
had not satisfied certain requirements
named by law, business principle instead
of perverted charity would act in the mat
ter, stimulating the domestic to her hest
endeavor guarding her and her EMPLOYER
against the Disadvantages of caprice in
changing, and securing to the latter some
thing on which to exercise Intelligent
judgment in the selection Of her help.
Why Lnundries Should De Licensed.
In suggesting that laundries be subjected
to sanitary inspection. and required to have
permit from proper authorities 1 have in
mind not 50 much the evils of commercial
Institutions, though these doubtless are
considerable, as L have the simply frightful
lawlessness with which private persons
take washing to their homes In visiting
alleys infested by the poorest and most de-
praved people, l have repeat tedly found wo-
men living in one or two back rooms III, a
hight OF stairs, their water supply OBJ
tanned from hydrant a block Off taking
in washing. With not so much as a back
porch or a roof for drying clothes. they are
strung about the close dirty room ana
piled on filthy bed when dried and ironed
Not only in the matter of insanitary equip
ment are these laundries a menace to
health, but they are, as a rule sWarmed
with neglec ted, miserable little childr.n
ana being perfectly lawless, the presence of
infectious disease does not hinder them
from doing BUSINESS. OF course 1t might be
said that 1t rests with the individual house,
keeper to know the condition of the nIace
to which she sends her family washing
put 1t seems to me the same argument
might be made against ths necessitv of
sanitary inspection of dairies. Moreover
aside from the protection afforded to health
by a law 10 improve the sanitary condi-
lions OF laundrieS., such a mea sure would
tend to advance certain reforms of do
nestle service, which depend for their suc-
cess upon the establishment Of trustworthy
some branches OF" domestic labor outside
the home. -
Social Status of Servants.
There are many well-defined evils attend
ant upon the present situation of domestic
labor which are apparently readily to be
overcome by education and remedial leeis-
lation, but there are some which SO inhere
IN our perverted social order as to seem
utterly hopeless of any sort of solution
Iney arse from the contradiction express
ed IN seeking to make servants of persons
who are under the law free born and our
equals. We preserve always the original
democratic idea of l"help' in fixing the
wages OF domestic labor, yet We insist on
the service OF a slave and assign the do
nfeStc laborer. a social status no better
than slaves That is to say on the the
ory that the domestic is admitted to the
home comforts of the family, we establish
the rate OF wages paid her, and as mat
ter of fact and bitter experience sh. is
made to put up with anything the family
does not want in the way of food and quar-
tefs-She eats what the family have left
after the family have finished and is lodged
IN the basement or garret in a room COM
monty not heated and furnished with any
odds and ends at hand; she is barred from
social relations with the family she serves
nor is provided with an acceptable place
and time for the enjoyment of her personal
social relations she is more often than not
made to wear a badge of servitude-cap
and apron; she is required to render per-
sonal service to any member of the family
at any time of the day or night conyen-
ience may suggest, and in return for all
ii!S the actual money she earns is COM
monty less than a man would get for
breaking stone in the road. One result of
this, bred in the character of the average
domestic, which personally l have found it
harder to contend with than lack of train
ing or any lack of skill, is the resentful,
suspicious, wholly unsympathetic attitude
ployer For long time this was a matter
OF great curiosity to me. L could not un-
derstand it, l had worked for my livin,
IN a newspaper office; l had been subject
TO authority and to criticism and had ac-
cepted Doth as matter of course of busi-
ness experience, and why my domestics
should undertake to do my work and then
seem to regard me their greatest enemy
on earth because l assumed to direct ana
control the work 1 gave them to do COM
pletely mystified me-
Woman an Economic Cipher.
l tried all sorts of altruistic devices to
get a good standing in my own kitchen,
hoping, above all things for something like
unSrudgfng service in return, and when my
noblest efforts all fell fiat and the dreadful,
bomb-throwing bitterness of Labor VS.. Cap
ital continued TO sleep under my roof and
prepare my unsavory food it finally dawn
ed on me that the secret of it all lay
IN the fact that our whole relation is based
on the assumption that woman is an eco
nonlc cipher; that domestic labor has no
value in the cost of the worlds productions,
ana 1 saw that the servant problem is not
a charity problem, nor an educational prob
lem, nor anything so much at first as a
fl<