The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-03-21
Employment Agent Declares House Employees Need
 Attention
"Girls Are Tired of Cooking, Washing and Other Drud- gery"- y"-Philadelphian Al so Declares that They Ob- ject to Carrying Coal to Various Fires.

to-do middle-class people who Keep a maid of all work. The general housework girl is gradually becom- ing an unknown quantity. Girls re- fuse to live out in a capacity which they consider one of all-round drug gery. They have baked at being asked to act as washwoman, coal car rier,, chambermaid, nurse and lady maid in one, and at receiving the same wages as they would get if they concentrated their energy upon one of these callings.
 '"The general housework girl will not stand for the big washing she is agent whose office is in the center of the town from which most of the select help'' is recruited. Family washes are twice as large as they us- ed to be, because the women wear so many white shirtwaists and light have no consideration for the girl when 1t comes to doing these up, and don't realize that 1t takes at least half an hour to iron @ one-piece morning dress.
 Object to Carrying Coal.
 Another thing the girls object to is having to care for the furnace, car ry up coal to the kitchen and put out the ashes. They think this is a
 
 are willing to do it. Last week l got a girl situation to do general homework in 8 family of five. She came back to me yesterday and told me she couldn't stand it. On Mon day she had to do a big washing with out help. The ironing, she said, dragged on until Wednesday because she had to get the meals, answer the doorbell and wait on table while try ing to get through with it. She was expected to find time every afternoon to make herself presentable and to appear in a white waist. She didn't get out on Thursday until the after noon was half over, because the sil- yer had to be cleaned and the din- ing room swept and because the mis- tress wouldn't let her go ahead with her regular task, but kept calling her to help with the upstairs work. On Friday she was expected to sweep the entire house, get the meals, answer the doorbell and the telephone and wait on the table. On Saturday she was kept busy from in the morning until at night.
 typical and the girl was not any more overworked than the average general housework girl. If the woman want to keep servants of this class in their homes. they will have to do something to make the work lighter
 
 have to give up a few of their whist parties and their matinees, and stay home and help out.- They can't ex- pect to call the girl up from the kitchen to button their waists and help them get ready for some social half hour in her work and then have the house kept in appIe-pie order and the meals cooked on time.
 "sI hear girls say over and over again that if the mistress would give them a lift occasionally or would train her daughter to do some of the work in the house, instead of adding to it, that they would not get so dis couraged and be so likely to go with out giving notice. I have found that in families where the young women are trained to do their share of the more contented. They don't feel that the whole burden of the homework rests on their shoulders.
 Reasons the Girls Give.
 Of the half dozen girls sitting around the office waiting for the par agon mistress to come along and cap ture them, the following reasons were given for not wanting to live out as general-housework maids. One wo- man, who had been in service more than 15 years, said she was getting too old to do a big family washing without help.
 Its too hard work" another said, "but that ain't the whole thing; sometimes you get a good home; you don't mind how much you have to do, but the worst of bein' the onfy girl in the house is that you don't get any time to yourself. You are so dog-tired at night you just creep into bed, and you never get a chance to see any of your folk or do a thing you want to. It's just work work, work from morning until night. You can't have any amusements; the mis- tress doesn't want you to go out, eX- cept one night a week, and then You get every other Sunday off, and, likely as not, the friends you want TO see don't have the same Sunday. Now if you are an upstairs girl. or a cook, you have all the time after your work is over to yourself. You have just you can go to your room or do what you want to do. You are not being nagged all the time by the doorbell and by odds and ends of work that never get done"
 Most of the girls considered it an outrage to be asked to carry up coal and attend the furnace.
 Why. one of them said, 'In my last place I had three fires to tend, two in the cellar and one in the kitch- en range The laQy expects me to put out the ashes on ashday when she could have got a man to do it for quarter a week. It was too much of good thing and I quit"
 Another complained of the loneli- ness of the general housework situa- ton, and said she would never again work in a house by herself
 You feel creepy at night" she said, when the family is all together playing the piano and talking and you're by yourself in the Kitchen without a scul to speak to. It ain't always easy to get on with the second girl. but it's better to be having a little bit of a row than to be dying of loneliness"
 The Agents Views.
 'You can't blame ese girls if they want to better themselves and .-et easier work for the same or more money, if :hey are able to,' said the agent. "Of course, situations such as they are after are scarcer than gen eral housework. but it has got so now that good, reliable girls will not go out in this capacity. There are a whole lot of undesirables who drift about from place to place, stay a few days or a week in a situation, leave without giving notice, and discredit themselves and the agent who recom- mends them, and these, and the green girls, are the only ones who will consider general homework place."
 When she was asked what solution che would suggest for the problem of