The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1899-12-12
A HONOLULU NEED
Employment Office to
Furnish Servants.
The Present System Condemned =
Views of Housekeepers On the
Sources of Help.

| There is great need of a reliable
| intelligence Office in Honolulu. Those
who employ domestic help have long
| felt the need of some source of supply
which can be depended upon to furnish
household servants upon short notice
This is especially the case in Honolulu
owing TO an unreliable class of SER
wants, mostly Japanese. which families
are forced to employ. Here the domes-
tic labor supply is furnished almost
exclusively by Japanese and Chinese
intelligence offices, and it is safe TO say
that not one out of twenty sent as SER
wants know anything about their bust
ness.
In many cases Japanese servants
fresh from plantations are sent from
Japanese employment Offices into fami-
| lies 10 cook or perform homework
After day or two of trial they are of
course discharged, or, finding they are
| incapable of doing the required work,
leave themselves. For these incom-
1
always take pains to secure the highest
wages possible and invariably recon-
mend them as capable servants. Owing
to this state of affairs it sometimes
takes weeks or even months before
reliable servant can be secured. There
are no recommendations required or
offered in Honolulu simply because it
has heretofore been impossible to estab-
lish such system. The cooking school
lately established by the ladies of Ho-
nolulu is move in the right direction,
but it only covers portion of the field.
A large portion of the servants hired
in the city are not cooks, but at the
same time have such household duties
to perform that they must be especially
trained for the work.
The rapid expansion of Honolulu dur
ing the past few years has largely in
creased the demand for this class of
servants while the supply mas seeming
ly diminished 1t is now a very gen
eral complaint among housekeepers
that it is more trouble 10 get proper
help than it is to do the work in the
family One lady says: Il have had
four Japanese servants within month
consider them a perfect nuisance.
These all came to perform household
work. Not one of them knew the first
thing about it. l discharged three after
a days trial each, and, tired out, /
determined to teach the last his duties.
After a week | had him going all right;
then he demanded raise of wages.
This | would not give and two days
afterwards he left with several days
pay coming to him, and I was without
help for Two weeks before l could get
another man to teach in his place. |
would rather do the work than fool
with them, but what can / do; / must
take what / can get, and that is what
ever the Japanese employment office
wishes to send me-"
Another lady says that she will not |
have Japanese female servants in the |
house because they are so unreliable !
and dirty. Il seldom ever got jap |
anese woman who would stay with me
for more than a few weeks and then it |
always takes two or three more before |
I can fill her place. What We need is
a reliable intelligence office in Honolu
lu run by white men, who will furnish
good servants and no others Such an
office will be patronized by every
housewife in Honolulu"