Evening star., 1907-10-26
Desire for Higher Things Makes
New York Suffer.
DRINKING WOMEN INCREASE
Craze for Liquor Reaches an Alarm
ing Stage Among Respectable"
Women, Young and Old.

Special Correspondence Of The Star.
NEW YORK. October % 1907.
HAT Training School for American
i servants, which a group of New
YORK miilionaires' wives were talk
ihs OF getting together and starting a
white ago. is still unstarted. Certain
amateur soc.ologists Of renown regard
ehat scheme as dream. anyhow. They
say that the difficulty would be in getting
pupils TOT such an institution. We're such
Daily independent set here in the states
ooh you see. that we'd all hate to nudg
FORWARD FOR instruction In d school that
would only serve to make US candidates
FOR menials' jobs-say the amateur so.
biologists. After while. it appears.
were all going to be SO eternally inda-
pendent that none of us is going to work
at all. We're all going to leaf-ethe real
VISION! Some of these amateur sociologists
occasionally have almost human prompt
ings,
Anyhow that everlasting servant prob
iem mas got to be actually the big right
at-hand problem over here It's mortally
nara 1or anybody, no matter how wealthy.
10 get any kind of a servant. Servants 1t
seems. are not on the market. They're
gong into other occupations that's tn =
answer you get at the employment agen-
cies where they take your money and tell
you TO come back in a year or two. and
they'll see what they can do for you"
Certain indications, for the matter of
that, go to prove that servants really are
trying to go into other occupations" ."
whether they are succeeding or not For
example the telephone company In this
town advertised for bunch of new hello
girls to break in a while ago. 1t hap
pened that the advertisement of the tale-
phone company was first printed in the
papers here on Thursday morning. Now
Thursday is the great day-off for New
York servants. Something like 800 young
women. all of them wearing that inde-
Unable but wholly unmist akab BILE appear
ance of servant girls on their day off.
burst in upon the astonished employing
agent of the telephone company on Thurs
day afternoon. There We're few scat
tered girls, ambitious to engage in the
hello business, who were obviously not of
the servant class. But the hugely pre-
ponderating majority of the girls were
nanifestly mechanicians of the kitchen
and no mistake. There were strodgy roly-
poly, moonfaced Swedish girls who say
LAY tank and little else in English: big,
blowsy. suspicious-eyed Hibernian maid
ems, almost with the peat still clinging to
their shoe leather; dVmpish, sleepy-look-
ing "Choiman COILS in their day-off
finery-all sorts including a slight sprin-
king of dusky maidens with "kinkene"
Strengthened hair. who took it very peev-
shly indeed when the employing man for
the telephone company shoo-fied em
into the outeL air.
Haven't the Brains.
AS matter Of fact, none of these serv-
ing maidens got telephone jobs. nor were
they even put through the preliminary
course of questions looking to giving them
examinations for telephone jobs. A degree
of intelligence, very decidedly higher than
that possessed by domestics is. it is need
less to say, required in the young woman
who is to make good as a telephone oper-
ator. The incident Is recounted chiefly
for its significance as showing that the
servants already employed really are
''rea aching out with the idea of going
into other occupations.
Again: A theatrical manager last week
advertised in all of the morning papers
for 900 good-looking. red-headed girls
and women for show he Is organ. zing-
a Broadway extravaganza it is to be, a
thing which folks will be asked 50 per
head to see. Nineteens out of twenty OF
the "grls and women with sun-ki5sed
locks who applied for these stage jobs
were plainly servant girls and nothing
else in the wide world. There wasn't any
mistaking them. They looked. acted.
talked and were servanty. The theatrical
manager was for some days the most
"kidded' man on Broadway. The great
white alley was alive with kitchen dam
sells during that entire day, and the shades
Of their hair made anything in the line of
the various and mixed in Josephs coat
look like a solid and sedate color Thus it
was shown that the reaching out" of
the basement charmers contemplates any
old thing higher up even unto the ap-
plauSe of deliriOuS audiences to COM
mand.
AS matter of fact. 1t is whispered that
quite few ex-kitchenerinos have already
transferred their more or less alluring
persons to the ranks of the show women.
Didn't one of them sinuous young per-
son. by the stage name of Camille Cliff
ford (something very different from that,
and Scandinavianish, in private life)
make good here in New York a
show woman only little while back. and
then more than make good as show
girl In London by marrying young male
creature with prosp title that goes
away back and behind the Tudors and
Plantagenets and sich like people? Yes m.
she sure did As matter of fact. isn't
there in existence at this hour a photo
her when she was In the act Of swabbing
a floor with q mop when she was a
maiden below stairs? That's what there
Is. for I have seen the same within the
past twenty-four hours Mayba 1t was
this illustrious example, and the instances
cited on top of 1t of servant girls who
have reached out" and made good in
higher walks. that has got all or most of
the New York servant girls a-going.
Haunt the Stores, Too.
If it isn't that, it's something Only
the other day I was told by the man who
employs the salesgirls for one of the
hugest department stores in New York
that no less than e-fourths of the
women applying to him for behind-the-
counter jobs are frankly and confessedy
servant girls. He employs the cream of
them, too, for it seems that. despite the
statistics which go to show that WON IN
are increasing more rapidly than men,
girls are scarce even for jobs in depart
ment stores.
Just why these servant girls cared to
go to work in the department store this
employment man confess ed himself
wholly unable to understand. In the
store they are paid from 81 to 81 a week.
Out of this they have to board and clothe
themselves, pay car fares. pay for their
washing, pay for all the little odds and
ends. Now, 1t Is an incontrovertible fact,
capable of the most searching verification,
that no servant girl really worth while
will work in New York any more for less
than So to s25 month. and not a few
OF them-quite ordinary, unskiled serv-
ants, understand. and not maids or nurses
or anything of that sort-get as high
$50 a month. The average apartment
maid employed by people in very moder
ate circumstances, gets from 81 to $50
month-S22 the minimum.