Year: 1875

Ladies rs Domestic Servants.


While the American feminine reformer is
busi]y engaged in discussing the question as
to how the sisterhood is to dress, Mrs. Craws-
bay, an enthusiastic English lecturer, has
been devising ways and means whereby the
immense surplus population of unprotected
gentlewomen are to live. Men in England
are at premium, ust as they are in Massa-
chusetts, and a marriageable bachelor is as
much sought after by managing mammas and
young ladies who have cnt their wisdom
teeth as the latest prima donna by the operate
caterer. Punch has picture OF corpulent
British matron imploring patertamilias to OBJ
tain an introduction to dusky prince, with
the ardent hope that he may take fancy to
ana marry an entire family of buNom daugh-
ters who are seven. Fortunately or perhaps


we should say unfortunately, the church and


the law have mutually trit1ing pref udice


against scptigamy, otherwise a haven of rest


might be found for the blushing surplus popu-
lation, who, poor dears, with their accom-


plishments and lady fingers arc unable to do
more than the lightest and most elegant OF
work. General poverty has become a ma
tional disease, and unless some radical reform
takes place in the present system of educat-
ing girls men of slender incomes and refined
tastes must ever bear within their breasts the
melancholy consciousness that when they die
these tender flowers must trust to cold worE
and learn the bitter lessons which come from
want and helpless indigence 1t is a hard
lesson to learn, but pride must have its fall,
and the struggling, hard-working, but unsuc-
cessful man who brings up his girls with 4
false idea OF their position, who educates
them in the arts of refinement instead Of in the
school of useful toll. commits sin and does
them an injustice for which he will undoubt-
edly have to answer at the great bar OF


Justice.


And yet how many professional man does
this very thing; how many an unsuccessful
and hand-to-mouth clergyman, lawyer. doc
tor, editor, man of letters-men whose intel
lectual caliber is above their means, whose
professional or family pride will not permit
them to look the stern reality in the face,
who keep up the farce to the bitter end-have
left behind them. as too many has found to
their cost, legacy of debt and a bitter awak-
ening for their helpless families to the cold
realities of life Had these girls been taught
from their earliest years that work was hon
orable, been trained like the boys to some
useful calling within the sphere of their pecu-
liar talents, or suited to their sex and capa-


bilities, not only might the poor man have
found his labors lightened during his life
time, but closed his eyes with the pleasant
confidence that these his children were able to
look the world in the face There are in
England, as there undoubtedly are in the
United States, hundreds of young ladies who,
by reason of death or misfortune, are COM
PEELED to DO the best they can. AS a rule,
there are but few avenues of employment
open to them-teachng, writing, sewing and
the like-and those, besides demanding spe-
cial training, are overdone Of skilled labor
they know but little or nothing, and shop
girl, like clerk, is hired for her peculiar fit
ness for the position. Mrs Crawsbay, in her
paper read before the British Association,
domestic service for ladies'
The idea is a fanciful one, but not unworthy
of consideration. The position of domestic
servant in England is, however, far below
the young lady, bred as the educated English
hall, the lisping vulgarity of the lady's maid,
the insufferable pomposity of and familiarity
of the footman would be alike unbearable.
Her mistress could scarcely treat her as an
equal, as English society is constituted, and
the short and the long of it would be that she
would simply require to put her pride and
her feelings in her pocket, or give it up.
With rs the case is a little different. Many
American families, recognizing broader and
more humanizing ground of equality, and
feeling an innate sympathy with refinement
in the kitchen as in the parlOr, are ever
watchful to consider the feelings of their
helps, when these helps are worthy to be so
The position of domestic SER
want in the United States, all complaints and
to she contrary Notwithstanding, is
an independent and respectable one and we
believe that if sensible, warm-hearted wo-
man like Mrs. Crawsbay were made aware
Of the advantage to be gained both to the
feelings and the pockets of her proteges by
she might materially assist the
American housewife in escaping from the
nsOlence, the dirt, the dishonesty of many of
he foreign importations she now has to con-
end with, besides affording her protege
chance to make respectable livelihood and
% escape the many drawbacks which domes-
ic service in England must entail upon an
educated and sensible nature. We believe
hat if Mrs. Crawsbay were to organize
party OF parties of English ladies and send
hem here they would not only find employ
nent as domestic servants, but a home and
friends, and perhaps (for the ways of Provi-
lence are inscrutable), as many colonists
-Ound IN the reign OF CnaneS H., tlOSc most
desirable of ali earthly goods and chattels-



THE Catholic Rerier, of October 9, says
hat according to the De,ttche Richszeitung,
! German Jesuit. Father Martin Egger, has
It last succeeded in excogitating machine
n which electromagnetic will be employed
IS the moving power, just as steam would be
Employed. He laid bis project before the,
imperial Society of Arts and Sciences, at
Vienna, which, upon examination, pronoun-
ed it practical, and decided to furnish the
inventor with the means of fully completing