Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1910-04-21

of the house and rooms that will be
considered impossible for any other
human being even casually spending
the night in the house. They are fire.
uqently bare of even common necessi-
ties
The position of those employed in
this service, as dwellers under the
same roof with their employers, gives
the latter no more right to interfere
in their private personal affairs than
with those of her tailor. When the
service for which she pays is properly
rendered, economic rights end. 1t
may be her privilege to suggest or
wisely guide in personal affairs. but 1t
must be willingly granted her. Ger
tain personal restrictions are neces-
sarily imposed upon anyone living In
another's household, but they must be
only such as any selfrespecting per
son would naturally comply with. or
they become intolerable.
The housekeeper who does her
whole duty to those who are members
of the household-ma her tribe in
crease! RESTS serenely in the conf
dence of having performed the whole
duty of woman. Nevertheless, every
once in a while her home is invaded
by the reprehensible methods of her
neighbors, introduced by one of the
nomadic host that forms the constant
procession through our American
kitchens, With uncomfortable and
n
sudden demand for an increase of
wages from a carefully trained and
reliable maid reveals the fact that
some other housekeeper in the neigh
borhOod, in dire stress of circum-
stance, or for a less honorable rea-
son has been tempted to offer higher
wages. The good woman cannot un-
derstand how she becomes the victim
of such unmerited disaster and won
ders why people can't mind their
own business and let her alone" and
she forthwith goes to the intelligence
office and fills the place of the COM
petent. intelligent maid with a wholly
inexperienced and unframed emigrant,
at the same rate Of wages she paid
for competency and the next order
she sends to her grocer calls for an
inferior quality Of goods, because
such are good enough for an incom-
petent cook to spoil"
The whole course of human devel-
opment has had a tendency to make
woman the conservative. self-centered
being that she is. and through that
char8 cteristic the home. her special
province, became and remained a sup
posedly self-suffcing social unit. Here
are enshrined the deepest mysteries
and sanctities of human life, rightly
protected from public interference. AS
the manufacturer is entitled to keep
secret the processes wherewith he
combines his raw materials into the
finished product, but the plant and
machinery may be matters of public
interest so in the home the life itself
is a personal affair, but the machin,
cry whereby it is carried on is a So
cial affair
In the days of simpler housekeep-
ing the domestic wage earners were
few in number and the ministrations
Of each individual were confined to
one or at most perhaps half dozen
families, and it .mattered comparative
ly little If the training consisted large.
ly Of unwholesome processes of cook.
ing and unsanitary methods of clean,
ing, since the mischief was not dis.
seminated through a whole commu
> nifty neither disease germs nor other
results Of crude experimenting were
carried from family to family by the
constantly moving stream of domestic
employees we have to-day
The woman who raises the rate OF
: wages in her own household compels
J. every other employer in her neighbor
t hood to do likewise, either absolutely
9 or by accepting inferior service, and
5 this result follows whether her motive
+ in so doing was to raise wage un
r Justly acquired through some Other
9 woman's careful training, or whether
+ it was done in pure thoughtlessness
+ The woman who lkes into her EN-
G pl1y, in place of a competent and well
T.. trained cook or housemaid, an mex
e perienced one, at the same rate o.
:. wages, because the girl, through nat
y ural stupidity or ignorance of thC
4 ways of her adopted country, is no.
+ I'D to the tricks Of girls in general,
I or because the hnusekeeper wants K