The Servant Problem: An Attempt At Its Solution

The Servant Problem: An Attempt At Its Solution, was written by “An Experienced Mistress” in 1899 and published in London. As the author states, “This was the burning question of the day”. (232 pages)

The Publisher has copy-edited this book to improve the formatting, style and accuracy of the text to make it readable. This did not involve changing the substance of the text. Some books, due to age and other factors may contain imperfections. Since there are many books such as this one that are important and beneficial to literary interests, we have made it digitally available.

Preface.

.....These pages have been written from a humanitarian point of view, for the purpose of showing "Domestic Service" as it is today, the one great cause of its collapse and failure, the remedy for righting it, and if worked upon the lines suggested, what it is likely to be in the future. If the language is in some portions rather warm, the writer trusts she will be pardoned, as the exigencies of the case demand plain speaking. Those who know best how matters stand in regard to mistresses and servants will be the least inclined to criticize.
.....George Eliot has said in one of her books something to the effect that "people are interesting in conversation in proportion to their knowledge of the subject upon which they are speaking." If this rule should apply to writing, then may the writer hope, without vanity, to excite some interest, however small, in her attempts to benefit her sex, as the following pages are the outcome, but certainly not all the experience, of thirty years' suffering as a mistress, and seeing others suffer.
AMARA VERITAS, 1899.

Contents:
Chapter I. The Problem Itself — Chapter II. Concerning Some “Registry Offices” — Chapter III. Some Disadvantages and Disabilities Under Which Mistresses Suffer — Chapter IV. Nurses And Nursemaids — Chapter V. The Young Woman from Devonshire or “Things are not what they seem.” — Chapter VI. Cooks And Cooking — Chapter VII. What A Written Reference Brought — Chapter VIII. In Favor Of Servants — Chapter IX. Remedial Measures — Chapter X. A Dream Of The Future

Excerpts:

.....I had once in my employment a young woman as nurse. She had not been long in my service before I discovered that she was taking my youngest child from the warm nursery, soon after he had been taken from his warm bath, upstairs into an icy-cold bedroom, whose windows had not been shut in the afternoon as ordered, and to crown all was putting him also into a cold, wet cot, the mackintosh, sheet, and blanket of which had never been dried.
.....My own experience has been frightful. I have had servants who have been quite incapable by twelve o'clock in the forenoon — one, indeed, boasted to her fellow servant that she had drunk about twenty-five shillings' worth of whisky (which was kept in her room) in six weeks. Her fellow servant asked that she might be sent away, as she could not live with such a character. Another gave notice because her conduct in going out nightly to a public-house was objected to; whilst after they had gone I would find bottles and flasks in the most unlikely nooks and corners. An old Scotch woman, who earned her living by going out daily to wash and to clean, told me that sometimes after a cook's hasty departure, when she (my informant) had to go to a house to "redd up" after her, "it was just extraordinar' the number of wee bottlies and flasks she would come across in a' sorts o' oot-o'-the way places, such as up some o' the lums (chimneys) for instance" — and this in houses where the Bible was read morning and evening, the servants joining in the reading.
.....A good servant is one of the greatest blessings a household can possess — indeed, it is not too much to say that she has it in her power to make a home or to mar it. For let a wife and mistress be ever such a good manager, and have one of the brightest of dispositions naturally, a bad, insolent, careless, or dirty servant will be in that home like a smoky chimney or a wet blanket, or like a canker at the heart of a beautiful apple.
.....A good servant is, therefore, one of earth's best treasures, and one that ought not to be lightly esteemed. There are, thank Heaven, some good servants even today. But, alas! their number seems lessening yearly. No doubt the very unsatisfactory condition of domestic service partly explains this fact, as well as the desire for more freedom and liberty, and also the increase in the number of branches of industry that are now opening up to women, and for which the splendid education furnished by our School Boards and Voluntary and National Schools is equipping them.