The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-04-02

yUu SeG IHeSes nursery HldldS HdfS q
 high code of ethics among themselves. If cooks and other domestics were more
 like them I guess the end of this ter
 rife problem would not be so far out of
 sight"
 It depends upon you young house.
 keepers of the land to solve this prob
 lem satisfactorily declared Mrs. Col
 den Wedding. I've lived through just
 what you are living through and it is
 nearly unbearable. Folks say that the
 servant question is harder to-day than
 it was twenty-five or fifty years ago.
 Don't you believe it. It was just the
 same then as it is now. We didn't have
 any apartment houses when I began
 housekeeping, but we had that neces-
 sary evil, the general houseworker. I
 had a small house and, like some of
 you one maid. Like you, I expected
 her to do everything-coo washing
 ironing, cleaning perform each service in the most expert manner.
 ..The trouble I had is beyond belief.
 As I think of it now feel very gratful that MT. Golden Wedding did not pack
 his things and leave me forever or else
 beat me good and hard. When we got
 along a little in the world and I was
 able to keep two servants my domestic
 troubles increased two-fold. That was
 a terrible blow. because I was sure that
 keeping two would solve the problem.
 Then I began to tell MT. Golden We'd ding that as soon as we were able to
 keep three I knew we wouldn't be
 bothered any more.
 II tell you girls, man is patient. How
 love him in particular, in general and
 in the abstract. Mir Golden Wedding
 merely said yes, he thought so, too
 when all the time he knew very we'll
 that third maid would increase the difficulty.
 She did. I found my good looks
 leaving me, my good temper a memory,
 and things were at sizes and seven.
 My servants appeared to reflect me
 mentally. One day the storm burst and my domestic atmosphere has been clear ever since,'
 Tell us about it. urged Mrs. June Bride.
 Well, I'd been married ten years and there were five babies,' continued the old lady. That's forty years gone now. We were eternally in a stew, though had only had two nurses in that time, and I more than agree with the good words spoken for nursery maids. Finally, one day MT. Golden Wedding could stand no more. When I told him a very good cook had given notice he al most turned purple, and yelled in my ear. And it's all your fault. A woman is fool who can't keep servants and run her house smoothly. Talk about
 perpetual motionl If it can't be discov- cred in the coming and going of ser wants in your kitchen then it never will be discovered
 He fiounced out of the breakfast room and to his office without kissing me good-by If he had slapped my face I should not have been more startled. But tell you he walked me up. I went to my room to have-no. not to ery-a good think. And let me tell you young women right here that one good think will do more to make married life liv- able than hundreds of crys. said to myself something like this:
 This trouble you've had with ser wants for a decade must be trough some grave fault in you. You have had better opportunities and know more than any employee who has. ever come to you, and upon you devolves the working out of q right relation with them A saying of Voltaire came to me: Having it clearly in your heart that all men are equal, and in your head that the exterior distinguishes them, you can get on very we'll in the world
 That hit home pretty hard: thought to myself, Here I've been treating my servants, upon whom the very happiness of my home life de- bends, as if-weli, as if they were not human. I allow them no social life here in this house, which is their only home, while in it. They do not want to be my social equals; they do not as pire to have my friends for theirs any more than my butcher or grocer, and all they crave in that line is the same privilege that 1 have, the right to go to see their friends unquestioned and the right to receive their friends here T reasoned to myself further that old Crosspateh Schopenhauer was quite right in thinking that the fundamental fault of the female character is that it
 has no sense of justice. The average
 man in his business employs more help
 than the average woman in her house.
 hold, and yet we never hear of any
 household problem among men in their
 world. Most of my woman aequaint-
 ances, myself included, are not only un-
 reasonable, but unjust to their servants.
 Housekeepers generally put a ban upon
 domestic service by looking upon the
 management of their household as d
 matter of secondary importance. The
 ordering of three meals a day is posi-
 lively irksome to them and oh, what a
 little thing that is, compared with the
 husbands task of earning three meals
 day, to say nothing of rent and cloth
 ing! So l thought I would call my
 three servants together and have it out
 with them.''