The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1900-01-27
AMERICAN HoUsEKEEpERs.

If you want to know why we
have no first class professional house
keepers in this country volunteered
the importer of an English specimen,
''it is because the American woman
is too proud and far too independent
to allow an employee to manage her
home. That is also the reason why
we with the best ordered, most lux
urious homes in the world, suffer from
criminally wasteful domestic manage
ment and the worst service of any
highly civilized people. In France or
England, where half as much money
is spent where there is twice the work
for the servants to do and third of
the conveniences here put at their dis
posal, the fashionable country or city
house is conducted with a noiseless
regularity that fills the American
Kisiter with uQthipgg isshert eff IA aatpaqzzees tpaqzzees
are by no means large corps Of fin
ished servants will be found that
only millionaires over here can af-
ford.
Gust so long as the American wo-
man is head of modest household she
is the most all around capable house
keeper in the world she can face
sitter odds and rout them more ut
terly than any French or English wo-
man living. We are the only women
in the world who, when deserted at a
critical moment, can cook a meal and
yet sit at the head of the table, while
that same meal is being served, in
fetching frock, carrying on a conver-
sation as though nothing had happen
ed. 1t is a charming faculty, but
when she is put at the head of a corps
of twenty servants and a great coun-
try house her system fails.
GA big, fashionable household is
just like big ship, it's got to have
captain to direct its course and an en-
gineer to run the machinery, and in
the foreign countries they realize and
provide for this. In France it is usu-
ally a 1naitre d'hotel who shoulders
the domestic burden. He has work
ed up in the service and his word is
law to the servants. He hires and
disnisses them, plans their work, sees
that it is done and he guarantees to
keep the men and maids we'll fed on
stated allowance. The mistress
gives him a fixed sum every month
and on this he caters for the servants
table that is by no means supplied
from the larder that feeds the family.
Every servant is entitled to the scraps
he or she leaves and has his or her
own plate, knife, fork, spoon, &C.,
and when meal is over these are
washed and set away by their owners
in their special cupboards. Scraps
are an important item to the thrifty
French domestic.
''In England there is woman who
does this, and every handsome Eng
lish house is built with special house
keepers quarters, sitting room and
bedroom. Some American houses
are now being provided with these
special two rooms.
"My housekeeper is of the typical
sort. She is about forty, plump,
pleasing and a settled widow who en-
tered service at sixteen as scullery
maid and has worked up. She is adj
dressed by the household as Mrs.
Brown, and every afternoon her tea
is served in her sitting room at 4
O'Clock by a maid. She drinks tea
and eats her dinner alone, later wear
ing a plain black silk gown, muslin
wreath cap and small lawn apron.
Every servant in the house, with the
exception of the butler, is under her
direct control, and for the good or
evil that every servant does she is re-
sponsible.
"She accepts my directions with a
humility no decayed gentlewoman
would show, and with respectfulness
no confidential lady's maid ever feels.
She gets $50 month and an allow
ance for paying the servants wages
and catering to their table, and she it
is who sees that no waste goes on in
my house.
MARRY you - she exclaimed.
"Do you think I am crazy - 81
don't know about that" he replied,