The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864

OUR DOMESTIC AFFAIRS

Not of those affairs which are domestic in a broad, national sense; not of any of our home institutions, 'peculiar' or otherwise; not of politics in any shape, nor of railroads and canals, nor of interstate relations, reconstructions, amnesty; not even of the omnivorous question, The War, do I propose to treat under the head of 'Our Domestic Affairs;' but of a subject which, though scarcely ever discussed except flippantly, and with unworthy levity, in that broad arena of public journalism in which almost every other conceivable topic is discussed, is yet second to none, if not absolutely first of all in its bearings upon our domestic happiness. I refer to the question of domestic service in our households.

The only plausible explanation of the singular fact that this important subject is not more frequently discussed in public is, undoubtedly, to be found in its very magnitude. Men and women whose 'mission' it is to enlighten and instruct the people, abound in every walk of morals. Religion, science, ethics, and every department of social economy but this, have their 'reformers.' Before the great problem, How shall the evils which attend our domestic service be removed? the stoutest-hearted reformer stands appalled. These evils are so multiform and all-pervading, they strike their roots so strongly, and ramify so extensively, that they defy the attempt to eradicate them; and they are thus left to flourish and increase. We have plenty of groans over these evils, but scarcely ever a thoughtful consideration of their cause, or an attempt worth noting to remove or mitigate them.

This is surely cowardly and wrong. This great question, which is really so engrossing that it is more talked of in the family circle than any other—this profound and intricate problem, upon the solution of which the comfort, happiness, and thrift of every household in the land depend more than upon almost any other—surely demands the most careful study, and the deepest solicitude of the reformer and philanthropist. The subject just now is receiving considerable attention in England, and the journals and periodicals of that country have recently teemed with articles setting forth the miseries with which English households are afflicted, owing to the want of good servants. But, unfortunately, from none of these has the writer been able to extract much assistance in preparing an answer to the only practical question: How are the evils of domestic service to be remedied? I quote, however, an extract from a recent article in The Victoria Magazine, in order to show how far the complaints made in England of the shortcomings of servants run parallel with those of our own housekeepers. It is to be noted that the writer confessedly holds a brief for the servants. If the facts are fairly stated, the relation between a servant in an English family and her employer differs widely from the like relation with us;

'The prizes in domestic service are few, the blanks many. Ladies think only of the prizes. Needlewomen and factory girls, when they turn their attention to domestic service, see the hardworked, underfed scrub lacking the one condition which goes far to alleviate the hardest lot, that of personal liberty. People who have never known what it is to be subject to the caprices of a petty tyrant, scarcely appreciate this alleviation at its true value. They expatiate upon the light labors, the abundance, the freedom from anxiety which characterize the lot of servants in good places, with an unction worthy of Southern slaveholders. What more any woman can want they cannot understand. They think it nothing that a servant has not, from week to week, and month to month, a moment that she can call her own, a single hour of the day or night, of which she can say, 'This is mine, and no one has a right to prescribe what I shall do with it'—that, in most cases, she has no recognized right to invite any one to come and see her, and therefore can have no full and satisfying sense of home—that many mistresses go so far as to claim the regulation of her dress—that even in mature age and by the kindest employers she is treated more as a child to be taken care of than as a responsible, grown-up woman, able to think and judge for herself. These are substantial drawbacks to the lot of the pampered menial.... These complaints of the readiness of servants to leave their places are based on the assumption that they are under obligations to their employers. In many cases, no doubt, they are, though probably least so where gratitude is most expected. But, at any rate, employers are also under obligations to them. When one thinks of all servants do for us, and how little, comparatively, we do for them, it appears that the demand for gratitude might come more appropriately from the other side. It is an old saying that we value in others the virtues which are convenient to ourselves, and this is curiously illustrated in the popular ideal of a good servant. In the master's estimate besides the indispensable physical qualification of vigorous health—diligence, punctuality, cleverness, readiness to oblige, and rigid honesty, of a certain sort, are essentials.'

We would look long through our laundries and kitchens for the 'hardworked, underfed scrub' of the above extract; and the 'servant who has not from week to week, and month to month, a moment that she can call her own, a single hour of the day or night, of which she can say, This is mine,' etc., does not belong to so numerous a class that her sorrows in this respect invoke commiseration in the public journals. But great as is the difference still between English and American servants, as indicated by the above extract, the former are in a steadily 'progressive' state, and every year brings them nearer in their condition to the happy—and, fortunately for the rest of mankind, as yet anomalous—state of American domesticdom. An article in the London Saturday Review thus comments upon this progress:

'It seems to be too generally forgotten that servants are a part of the social system, and that, as the social system changes, the servants change with it. In the days of our great-grandmothers, the traditions of the patriarchal principle and the subtile influences of feudalism had not died out. 'Servitude' had scarcely lost its etymological significance, and there was something at least of the best elements of slavery in the mutual relation of master and servant. There was an identification of interests; wages were small; hiring for a year under penal obligations was the rule of domestic service; and facilities for changing situations were rare and legally abridged. It was as in married life; as the parties to the contract were bound to make the best of each other, they did make the best of each other. Servants served well, because it was their interest to do so; masters ruled well and considerately, for the same practical reason. Add to this that the class of hirers was relatively small, while the class of hired and the opportunities of choice were relatively large. These conditions are now reversed. As education has advanced, the social condition of the class from which servants are taken has been elevated, and it is thought to be something of a degradation to serve at all. 'I am a servant, not a slave,' is the form in which Mary Jane asserts her independence; and she is only in a state of transition to the language of her American cousin, who observes, 'I am a help, not a servant.' It is quite true that there are no good servants nowadays, at least none of the old type; and the day is not perhaps so very distant when there will be no servants at all.'

The servant classes of France, Germany, and the other Continental countries, seem to be, to a great extent, free from the faults that beset those of England and America. A recent number of Bell's Weekly Messenger thus discusses this difference:

'The truth is that among the Celtic and Sclavonian families service is felt to be honorable; those engaged in it take it up as a respectable and desirable condition. They are as willing to acknowledge it as the physician, the lawyer, or the clergyman is to admit and be proud of their own. A French female servant, at least away from Paris, wears a dress which marks at once what she is. She is not ashamed of her condition, and nowhere is there such real attachment between servants and their employers as in France. In England, on the other hand, it is difficult to persuade a young girl to accept domestic service; she requires what she imagines to be something higher, or—to use her own word—more 'genteel.' If she be a dressmaker, or a shop girl, or a barmaid, she assumes the title of 'young lady,' and advertises—to the disgust of all sensible people—as such. This monstrous notion, which strikes at the root of all social comfort, and a great deal of social respectability, is on the increase among us. It is not quite so rampant as it is in America, but it is tending in the same direction. In fact, our household prospects are not promising. Since we feel that home cookery is far from rivalling that of the clubs, restaurants are being established in the city equal to those of Paris, and the cartoon of Punch is daily fulfilled with a terrible accuracy. 'What has your mistress for dinner to-day?' says the master of the house, on the doorstep, his face toward the city. 'Cold mutton, sir.' 'Cold mutton! Ah! very nice; very nice. By the by, Mary, you may just mention to your mistress that I may perhaps be detained rather later than usual to-day, and she is not to wait dinner for me.' With these things before our eyes, we cannot but feel grateful to any one who will bona fide undertake to teach a little plain cookery. The want of this is the cause of more waste than any other deficiency. The laboring man marries; but he marries a woman who can add nothing to the comfort of his home; she supplies him with more mouths to feed, and she spoils that which is to be put into them; she becomes slatternly, feels her own incapacity, and, finding that she can do but little of her duty, soon leaves off trying to do it at all. As her family increases the discomforts of her home increase, and the end is frequently—drunkenness, violence, and appeals to the police magistrate.'

 

The writer of the present article pretends to no peculiar fitness for the investigation of this important subject, and to no more varied and profound experience than that which has fallen to the lot of tens of thousands of others; but much observation leads to the conviction that the experience of any single family extending through a series of years of housekeeping, may be taken as a type of that of all families who have to employ servants; and if what shall be advanced in these pages shall have the effect of stimulating others more competent to thought upon the subject, with a view to practical suggestions for the amelioration of the universal difficulty, much will have been gained.

The chief evils we have to consider on the part of servants are, briefly, ignorance, wastefulness, untidiness, pertness, or downright impudence, and what is called 'independence,' a term which all housekeepers thoroughly understand. I leave out of the category the vices of intemperance and dishonesty, which, although lamentably prevalent among the class to which we are accustomed to look for our main supply of domestics, yet do not belong, as do the other faults I have named, to the entire class, and I gladly set them down as moral obliquities, as likely to be exceptional in the class under consideration as in any other. With regard to the other specified failings, every housekeeper will allow that it is so much the rule for a servant to be afflicted with the whole catalogue, that the mistress who discovers her hired girl to be possessed of a single good quality, the reverse of any I have named, as for example, economy, neatness, or a conscientious devotion to the interests of her employers, although she may utterly lack any other, fears to dismiss her, for fear that the next may prove an average 'help,' and have not a solitary good point. A girl who combines all the above-named good qualities is a rare treasure indeed, and the possessor of the prize is an object of envy, wide and hopeless.

In commenting upon the causes which produce bad servants, I shall confine myself more especially to those which develop in them the faults of wastefulness, impudence, and 'independence,' both because every housekeeper will allow that they are the most common as well as trying of all, and because it is only for them, I confess freely, I have any hope of suggesting a remedy. Ignorance of their duties is chronic in all Irish and German girls when they first go out to service, and their acquirement of the requisite knowledge depends very much upon the amount of such knowledge possessed by the housekeeper who has the privilege of initiating them. Untidiness is almost equally universal among the same classes, and, being a natural propensity, is extremely difficult of eradication. It may be stated, however, that given an average 'greenhorn,' Irish or German, the notable and tidy housewife will make of her a very fair servant, as well instructed as her native intelligence will allow, and, unless a downright incorrigible, whose natural slatternliness is beyond the reach of improvement, a certainly tolerably neat, and possibly a very tidy servant. And just here I will remark that it is an unquestionable fact that the good housekeeper has a much more encouraging prospect of making a useful servant out of one of these same 'greenhorns' than of a girl who has been longer in the country, and who has nevertheless yet to be 'licked into shape.' Of course this remark covers the whole ground, and it is obvious that to start a girl right in habits of economy, respectfulness, etc., is quite as important as to start her right in any other good habit. It is not necessary to say further that starting right is not of itself enough: there must ever accompany the progress of the servant in improvement, the watchful eye and guiding hand of the skilled mistress and head of the family. I cannot, within the scope of this article, enter into the consideration of the important correlative branch of my subject, which includes the fitness of housekeepers to make good servants out of the rough, to keep good what they so find, or to improve such as they receive, be they good or bad. It is obvious that this fitness presupposes a practical knowledge of the science of housekeeping—(how worthy it is to be called a 'science'!)—and a willingness to accept and carry out the responsibilities which devolve upon the mistress of a family. I admit that very many of those who keep servants are utterly unfit in many important senses for the responsibilities of family economists. Yet I still believe it possible for even the most inexperienced housekeepers to adopt and pursue, in their management of servants, one or two cardinal principles which will save them a vast deal of vexation. Of these, more hereafter.

The very prevalent pertness and 'independence' of servants are due, primarily, unquestionably to the great demand for them, and the ease with which situations are procured. This is not, in my judgment, because the supply is inadequate; I do not believe it is. It is because the frequent changings of servants by our families places it in the power of every one of the former to procure a situation without the slightest trouble. A girl about to leave a place has but to inquire for two or three doors around, to find some family about to change 'help.' This 'independence' is also undoubtedly fostered by a false and exaggerated idea which these girls imbibe from their brothers, 'cousins,' etc.—the voting 'sovereigns' of the land—of the dignity of their new republican relation. Most of the 'greenhorns' begin humbly enough, but, after a few months' tutelage of fellow servants, and especially if they pass through the experiences of the 'intelligence offices' (of which more anon), they are thoroughly spoiled, and become too impudent and 'independent' for endurance. The male adopted citizen, fawned upon by demagogues for his vote, is 'as good as anybody;' and why not Bridget and Katrina?

Now I do not broach the abstract question of equality: I am willing to admit that in the eye of our Maker we are, and before the law ought to be, all equal—that is to say, ought all to have an equal chance; but to abolish the idea of subordination in the employed to the employer, and to abrogate the relation of dependence of the servant upon her or his master or mistress, would simply be to reverse the teachings of inspiration and nature. As well say that the child shall be independent of the parent as that the servant shall not be subject in all reasonable things to the master.

It is worthy of remark that this spirit of insubordination spoken of is far more rife among girls of Irish birth who go out to service than among the Germans, Scotch, or English. Neither is there among these latter so much clannishness, or disposition to establish the feeling under consideration as a class prejudice and principle of conduct, as there is among the former. The absence of such a homogeneity of feeling among German, English, and Scotch domestics makes them much more favorable subjects for the operation of the rules I propose to suggest for their improvement.

The clannishness just alluded to is a very important influence among those which tend to produce insubordination and other serious faults among servants. Every housekeeper must have observed that a marvellous facility of intercommunication exists among the servant classes, and more particularly among the Irish. There seems to be some mysterious method at work, whereby the troubles and bickerings of each mistress with her 'help' are made known through the whole realm of servantdom. It is no uncommon thing for a mistress to have minutely detailed to her by her hired girl the particulars of some difficulty with a previous servant, with whom she has no reason to believe the narrator has had any intercourse. So frequently does this happen that many housekeepers religiously believe that the Irish servants are banded together in some sort of a 'society,' in the secret conclaves of which the experiences of each kitchen are confided to the common ear. This belief is not confined to American housekeepers, but obtains very extensively in England also. The arrest and punishment of a woman in London for giving a good 'character' to a dishonest servant, who subsequently robbed her employer, naturally caused some excitement in housekeeping circles in that city, and numerous communications to The Times evinced the feeling upon the subject. In one of these 'A Housekeeper' boldly asserts that there are combinations among the servants, and that housekeepers who refuse to give a certificate of good character are 'spotted,' and find in consequence the greatest difficulty in obtaining any servants thereafter. Indeed, she asserts that in some instances, so rigorously does the system work, offending families have been compelled to relinquish housekeeping, and go into lodgings or abroad, until their offence was forgotten! The fundamental principle which our housekeepers believe to pervade these societies is that employers are fair game; that the servant has to expect nothing but to be oppressed, persecuted, overworked, ground down, and taken advantage of at every opportunity, and that it is her duty, therefore, to hold the employer at bitter enmity, and to make the best fight she can.

Now such a belief can scarcely be termed absurd, and yet it is unquestionably groundless. The mysterious 'understanding' of servants, and their wide knowledge of each other's experiences, may be explained upon a perfectly simple and rational theory, and I think we may venture to reject the 'society' hypothesis altogether.

Servant life is as much a world in itself as political, religious, or art life. Indeed, its inhabitants are even more isolated and self-existent than those of any other sphere, for while the politician, theologian, and artist are generally, to some extent, under the influence of interests and passions other than those which belong exclusively to their special walk, the dwellers in kitchens have but the one all-embracing sphere, and its incidents, which seem to us so trivial, are to them as important as the great events which we think are worthy of being embalmed in epics or made imperishable in history. To them the reproof of the mistress or the loss of wages for the careless pulverization of a soup tureen is lawful theme for the agitation of all servantdom. Martin Luther had his tussles with pope and devil, Handel and Gluck had their wars with the hostile cabals, Henry Clay had his John Randolph and Andrew Jackson—and Bridget and Catharine have their disturbing and absorbing questions of 'wages,' and 'privileges,' and other matters; and a wrangle that the mistress forgets in a day, the maid carefully cherishes in her memory, and makes it the theme of widest discussion. Without resorting, then, to the improbable notion of the existence of a secret society among the servants, through which the knowledge of our difficulties with them is disseminated, I think the theory above outlined sufficiently explains what seems so mysterious. There can, however, be no question that the feeling among servants generally is unfortunately something like that alluded to above as the imaginary inspiration of a hypothetical society, namely, that employers are oppressive, exacting, and utterly selfish; and there is certainly a tacit understanding that, as between servant and mistress, it is 'diamond cut diamond;' and the habit domestics have of making common cause with a sister in trouble, no doubt practically works as much evil as if such a society as has been mentioned really existed. The girl, confronting her adversary, in military phrase, feels a hundred comrades 'touching her elbow,' and her lip is wonderfully stiffened thereby. Now it is needless for me to say that the idea that these poor girls have, that their employers are their natural enemies, is wrong and absurd, and every housekeeper should endeavor to make this clear to her servants. If this false idea could be eradicated, and the true theory established that the interests of the employer and employé are identical, much will have been accomplished toward making better servants.

Among the influences which are at work to spoil servants, none are more baleful than the system, as at present conducted, of 'intelligence offices.' These agencies might be and ought to be among the most useful of our social institutions: they are, as a class, utterly worthless, and many of them are positively dens of thieves. Almost without exception they are conducted upon the vicious principle I have just above discussed, and in them the servant is confirmed in her belief that the employing class is a class of cruel oppressors. The interest of the employer seems to be held by the managers of most of these institutions as absolutely of no account. The following conversation, which actually took place in one of these offices, between its proprietor and an applicant for a domestic, will illustrate, better than a lengthy disquisition could do, the system upon which too many of these employment agencies are conducted:

Lady. I want a girl for general housework.

Proprietor. Well, I can suit you, if you can be suited. Here's a girl, now, just out of a place, and I can recommend her (beckoning to one of the fifty girls who are seated in full hearing of all that passes).

Lady (after a few questions addressed to the girl, who, of course, can cook, and bake, and wash and iron, and is extravagantly fond of 'childer,' etc., etc.). Well, there is one thing I am very particular about. I want a girl who is honest. The last girl I had from you I had to discharge for making too free with my stores for the benefit of her own family relations.

Proprietor (with an insolent sneer). Honest! humph! that depends upon what you call honest. Some people call a girl a thief if she takes a bit of cake from the pantry without saying, 'By your leave.' (Chorus of giggles and approbatory nods from the sympathizing audience of fifty.)

The crude notions of the respective rights of meum and tuum furnished the 'help' graduated by such an institution, may be imagined.

Some pains are occasionally taken to provide a regular customer, whose patronage it is desirable to retain, with a good servant, but generally all is fish that comes to their net. The business is now in such ill odor that intelligence-office servants are proverbial for worthlessness and all the worst qualities of the class. I have known a thief, a drunkard, and a vixen to be sent from one of these offices in succession, the victimized housekeeper finally begging that no more be sent, preferring to let the retaining fee go, than to be pestered any further. It is well known that the more decent and self-respecting of the class of domestics rarely, now, enter their names upon the books of intelligence offices. Indeed, such seldom have occasion to seek places; if they do, they usually prefer to advertise.

In this employment-agency business a radical reform is needed. A respectable and conscientious man at the head of such an institution, managing it upon the principle that it is just as much his interest to furnish the employer with a good servant as to provide the servant with a good place, would be truly a public benefactor. In this, as in all other kinds of business, honesty would be found the best policy. It is a base imposition to recommend as good a servant who is known to be bad, and it is just as dishonest to recommend as good one whose character is totally unknown. It should be the business of every purveyor of household 'help' to ascertain, by rigid investigation, the characters and qualifications of those who apply for places; and they should steadily refuse to have anything to do with any they cannot honestly recommend. This, we repeat, they would speedily find their best policy. In this way, and this only, can they win back the confidence and patronage of the public; and they would soon find that the worthless characters who now constitute their main stock in trade, would be superseded by a much better class. There would be another important benefit to the servants themselves in such a course. In an office thus conducted, the known necessity of being able to show a clean record in order to procure a place, would reform many a bad servant, who now, knowing that her twenty-five cents will procure her a place (and no questions asked by the agent, so that he need tell no lies), has no incentive to improvement or good conduct. There would soon be a rivalry among servants as to who should stand highest upon the roll of merit.

The fault which has been before alluded to under the name of 'independence,' deserves more special mention than I have yet given it. It is probably the most exasperating, as it is the most general of all the failings of servants. It makes the timid and sensitive housekeeper a slave in her own house. No matter how grave may be the offences of her hired girl, she must bear them in the meekest silence. Even the most friendly advice, conveyed in the blandest possible tone, is often declined with freezing dignity or repelled with tart resentment. The cook who makes a cinder of your joint, or sends you up disgusting slops for coffee, or the laundress between whose clean and soiled linen you are puzzled to choose, has almost invariably the reply, uttered with a majestic sternness that never fails to crush any but a veteran and plucky housekeeper: 'This is the first time any mistress ever found fault with my cooking (or washing), and I have always lived with the best families, too.' The cutting emphasis with which this point of the 'best families' is pushed home, is familiar to nearly every housekeeper. It was scarcely a departure from sober truth in the lady who, on being asked if she kept a hired girl, replied that she had an Irish lady boarding with her, who occasionally condescended, when she had nothing of more consequence to do, to help a little in the work of the family. An amusing trifle is going the rounds of the papers, which well hits off, and without much exaggeraration, the self-assumed prerogatives of the servant girl of our great cities:

"Now, Miss Bradford, I always likes to have a good, old-fashioned talk with the lady I lives with, before I begins. I'm awful tempered, but I'm dreadful forgivin'. Have you Hecker's flour, Beebe's range, hot and cold water, stationary tubs, oilcloth on the floor, dumb waiter?' Then follows her planned programme for the week: 'Monday I washes. I'se to be let alone that day. Tuesday I irons. Nobody's to come near me that day. Wednesday I bakes. I'se to be let alone that day. Thursday I picks up the house. Nobody's to come near me that day. Friday I goes to the city. Nobody's to come near me that day. Saturday I bakes, and Saturday afternoon my beau comes to see me. Nobody's to come near me that day. Sunday I has to myself."

I have now pointed out some of the principal faults of servants, and indicated what I believe to be some of the causes of those faults. Alluding, in passing, to some influences which it seems to me might be made available in correcting some of these faults, I have yet to mention what I conceive to be the most important reason of all for the general worthlessness of the class under consideration. And in noticing this I shall necessarily couple with that notice some suggestions which I firmly believe, if put into practice, will be exceedingly beneficial in producing the reform we all so ardently wish for. And I feel the less hesitation in saying this, because they are based upon no theory of my own devising, but upon principles which are everywhere recognized and acted upon, except, singularly enough, in the conduct of our domestic affairs. To be brief, then, I attribute the greatest of the evils of our system of domestic service to a want of business management in our domestic affairs.