The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1901-12-01

Every woman's club and every woman's
column has discussed and dissected and
distilled the servant question until it has
become a part OF our very brain. and nerve.
and bone. 1t may be safely asserted that
at this very moment. in four-hfths of the
servant-keeping households of our land,
that question dwarfs in Importance every
other-possibly all others combined.
Even in the time of Theocritus, $50 B. c.,
we are told that servants were trouble
some, and that it was impossible to find
satisfactory one. He makes the Syracusan
Praxinoe call her maid "a lazy thing"
caution her against dropping her gown
wherever she happens to be changing it.
and say, 1.-The cats find it just the bed they
like" and in a single brief interview this
mistress calls her slave, You stupid"
you goose" and you mad girl" We dare
Praxinoe TO address thus one of our mod
eru maid servantsl
In fact, it is said to be literally true in
many of our cities, and in nearly all OF our
rural districts. that there really are not,
counting in all of the good bad and indif-
ferent candidates for positions in domestic
service, anywhere near enough to go
around. One reason why very many house
holds are not supplied with servants is be-
cause there actually are none for them to
get There are plenty of char-women, and
at the same rates as for the last twenty
years Sewing women abound, and their
rates, too, remain substantially Just what
they have been. There is a never-failing
supply of factory-hands and of saleswom-
EN-, willing to work, it is said, for almost
cruelty low wages. But domestic service
is hated and despised, apparently, in spite
of efforts, which we believe to be sincere
and almost universal, on the part of house
keepers to make it attractive, and there is
such dearth of home-helpers that homes
are being broken up on all sides; co-opera
ton seems to grow no more feasible, and
the family hotel" is becoming a danger
ously large element in our so-called civili-
zation.
Proofs of the scarcity of servants abound
| on all sides. Every one who has investi-
gated the matter can mention one or more
friends who have advertised in the most
alluring terms and have received either no
| replies at all, or utterly hopeless ones. Re-
peated applications at well-known intelli-
gence offices have produced no result what
ever. One lady asked her char-woman if
| she had daughters. Oh, yes; she had two.
why cannot one of them come to me
| and be trained for my work."
"Oh one is in the rock-candy factory,
and the other is in the skirt factory" An
| other char-woman, who was almost break
ing her back with five or six days work
each week at washing, ironing and clean
ing, said that her daughter was not going
out to service; she was going to be sales
| lady.
DIFFICULT TO FIND.
These women are just as ambitious for
| their children as We are for ours. Our
streets are full Of Italian laborers who dig
and delve for mere pittance. We hear en-
trancing tales from Italy of the neatness
and efficiency and cheapness of Italian
maids. But there are no Italian maids to be
had in our market. All of the women in
| the families of our Italian diggers seem to
find plenty of congenial employment in
selling fruit and stationery and cigars, and
| in grinding hand organs.
| Firms, Swedes and Norwegians are popu-
lar servants, but scarce. An English maid
| is almost inaccessible. Colored maids are
not generally popular. for, though highly
| recommended in some quarters, they are
said to be more likely than those of other
4 races 10 De LSHl-HnSeTeO, lazy, SIatternly
| and unchaste. Even If there were enough of
| them, as there are not, they could not re-
lieve the terrible congestion of suffering
| mistresses.
| The Irish are in the majority In this field
| in the East, and they rule us as if we
were born to be their footballs. 1t used to
| be said that the rich would never come
| into bondage like this. 1t was supposed
| that offers of exorbitant wages would al
ways attract the right sort of person But
| the highest inducements fail now in many
| cases to fetch the desired objects Our
subjugation is complete. No conqueror of
| old ever pressed down the yoke more pitt
lessly on helpless provinces than our Hi
bernian rulers apply the lash to our bare
| and bleeding shoulders.
How many in fambly?"
| Five"
II niver wurruks in family of more than
| three, num-
Exit Bridget. The anguished mistress
| goes over in her mind the members of her
family, wondering which child she can best
| strange. She would gladly at moments,
lay her own head upon some friendly gull
| lotine, and thus reduce the family to four: