Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-04-14
THE AMERICAN HOUSEKE
Her Merits and Her Shortcomings
From n Foreign Point of View.
From the New York SIM
From the New York 5

From the New York Sum-
IL you want to know why We have no
hrst-class professional housekeepers in this
country volunteered the importer of an
English specimen, at is because the Amer
lean woman is too proud and far too indie
pendent to allow an employee to manage her
home. That is also the reason why We with
the best ordered, most luxurious homes in
the world, suffer from crimina,ly wasteful
domestic management, and the worst serv-
ice of any highly civilized people. In France
or England, where half as much money is
spent, and where there is twice the work for
the servants to do and third of the con-
Eenlences here are put at their disposal, the
fashionable country city house is coa-
dGcted with notseiess regularity that fills
tht American visitor with nothing short OF
amazement. In houses where the incomes
are by no means large corps of finished
servants will be found, that only mirion-
aires over here can afford.
just so long as the American woman is
head of modest household she is the most
all-around capable hCusekeeper in the
world she can face sitter odds and rout
them more utterly than any French or
English woman living. We are the only
women in the world who, when deserted al
a critical moment. can cook meal and yet
sit at the head of the table, while that same
meal is being served, in fetching frock
carrying on ii conversation though moth
ing had happened. 1t is a charming fac
ulty, but when she is put at the head of a
corps of twenty servants and a great coun-
try house her system fails.
"A big, fashionable household is lust like
big ship, it's got to have a captain TO
direct its course and an engineer to run the
machinery, and in the foreign countries
they realize and provide for this In France
1t is usually maitre d'hotei who Shout
ders the domestic burden. He has worked
up in the service and his word is law to the
servants. He hires and dismsses them
plans their work. sees that II iS 1ppe No La
guarantees to keep the men and maids well
fed on a stated allowance. The mistress
gives him fixed sum every month, and on
TINS ne 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
mas MS or her own pate, knife, fork spoon
&c, and when a meal is over these are
washed and set away by their owners in
their special cupboards. Scraps are an i'm
portant item to the thrifty French domestic
In England there is a woman who does
this. and every handsome English house is
built with special housekeeper's quarters,
sitting room ana led room. Some Ameri-
can houses now being provided with
the Sc special two rooms.
My housekeeper is of typical sort. She
Is about forty. plump, pleasing and settled
widow, who entered service at sixteen as a
scullery maid and has worked up. She is
addressed by The household as Mrs Brown
and every afternoon her tea is served in
her sitting room at o'clock by a maid
one tIIIhS TEA ana eats ler uInncr alone,
later, wearing plain black silk gown a
muslin wreath cap and small lawn ;tprcn
Every servant in the house. with the ex-
oertion of the butler, is under her direct
control, and for the good Or evil that every
servant does she is responsible
She accepts my directions with a humil-
lily no decayed Eentlewoman would show
and with a respectfulnsss no confidential
lady's maid ever feels She gets 500 a
month and an allowance for paying the
servants wages and catering to their
table, and she 1t is who sees that waste
goes on in my house.
With prayer of thanksgiving and a
quiet mind 1 can new nightly lay my head
On my pillow, and 1 don't expect to come
DOWN win nervous prostration at the end
OF the season. The storm and stress of
housekeeping has passed me. and no longer
must / coolly count Off 500 a month to
waste as most fashionable hostesses do;
nc longer do 1 haunt intelligence offices
wren dozen engagements press and no
longer do l sit down to weep on coming
nome from a hard afternoons calling to
near that the cook has left in a rage the
parlor maid has smashed my best bric-a-
brac and the laundress scorched a hole in
my best table CLOTH
But let me tell You what lots of our rich
women do. They don't mind handing their
babies into the care of Undergraduates but
they deeply resent sharing the command of
their households with competent woman
FOR my part l think every big American
household where there is a great corps Of
servants should have one of these compe-
tent women at the head, and very soon in
consequence. we would see marked i'm
provement in the American maid servant
for training domestics is one of the i'm
portant missions of the English house,
keeper She lakes In ignorant girls and
teaches them first to be competent kitchen
maids and then promotes them as their
value and knowledge increase, and thus the
generation OF English maid servants, the
deftest, most accomplished domestics in
the world, are trained in their profession
Clever and versatile as the American wo-
man may be when thrown on her own re-
sources, she has no gift for educating crude
talent When she has wealth and luxury
she simply solves the difficulty by paving
fabulous wages. overlooking a good deal Of
incompetence and retiring to hotel every
now and then to recover from the hattls
with servants"