LX.
HOW CAN WE SECURE GOOD SERVANTS?
MANY inquiries reach us, both from city and country, as to the best and most certain way to secure, if not the best, at least tolerably good servants. It is a question impossible to answer with any degree of certainty. The very best managers, the kindest and most conscientious, are no more sure of being suited than those who work without method, and are not governed by the law of kindness.
“Where shall we apply when searching for help?” is a question that is asked very frequently, and is equally impossible to answer. Some say, “Advertise.” The next will give you such a history of her trials from advertising, as will most effectually frighten you from that mode of help-seeking. But they will tell you to go to one intelligence office, and, if that fails, refer you to the next best. Another will say, as we should, that of all places an intelligence office is the most disheartening and the least reliable of any.
A lady in the country, with a large family, who is so happy as to have two grown-up daughters for her chief assistants, is desirous of “obtaining a raw German or English girl, hoping to be able to train her to do general housework properly,” and inquires where she must apply to obtain such a one, “right from the ship,” before a week or two of idleness has taught her the “ways and the manners” of those who have been in this country longer.
We have very little experience with what are called “greenhorns,” or girls right from the emigrant ships, though we doubt if they can be any more ignorant or half so unmanageable as many of the girls who have been in America for years.
The emigrant ships which come to New York land their passengers at Castle Garden. “The Labor Bureau of the Commissioners of Emigration” is under the supervision of Eugene Casserly, and we are told by reliable authority, that unless friends have secured employment for them before they reach our shores, their names, if they come seeking work, are registered in an intelligence office there. For any one proposing to seek servants from among those just landed, it may be well to go to that office, when these ships first land their passengers, and endeavor to form as correct a judgment as is possible, before actual trial. We are also told that some little conversation with the officers of the ship will sometimes make the selection easier or more satisfactory. During the tedious passage the officers have many opportunities of seeing their passengers under circumstances that can, if they choose to notice, enable them to form a reasonably correct idea of their character and capacities; though we fear that officers on board emigrant ships seldom give much heed to those under their care.
A reader inquires “if it would be safe for a young housekeeper to attempt to train a ‘raw recruit,’ and, if so, from which of all the countries whose people flock to our land we would advise her to seek for a good, reliable servant.”
It requires much patience and no small degree of skill to take a girl from another country, whose whole life and associations have been entirely different from our own, and bring her into a new life by teaching her to forget all her early habits and modes of working. It is a great and uncommon gift to be able to do this with patient kindness, and yet with such authority as insures obedience. Success in such an undertaking is a blessing both to the teacher and the pupil. Now and then we find one who, under such teaching and benevolent guidance, has fully repaid all the thought and care which has been bestowed upon her, and who, by her fidelity and unwearied energy, has won the love and grateful appreciation of all, and is looked upon as the good angel of the family. But we regret to say such characters are rare; and though, in some instances, the impatience and irritability of the mistress may repress much of good which, under better auspices, might have been developed, yet we do not believe as a general rule that the chief blame should rest with the mistress. Not one in a hundred—and that we fear is a high proportion—of all the Irish that come to our country can, by any amount of care, patience, or indefatigable teaching, be transformed into a neat, energetic, faithful, truth-telling servant; and as for gratitude, once in a while you may find one who remembers your faithful teaching, your kindness and care in times of sickness or trouble, who cannot be turned from her fidelity and attachment to you; but for the most part all this vanishes like the morning dew, at the first chance for easier work or higher wages.
The English and Scotch, as far as our observation goes, are more inclined to make their employers’ interest their own. They labor as faithfully, and watch with an eye to economy quite as earnestly, when left in charge alone, as when the master and mistress are near them. Of course there are exceptions to every rule; and we speak more from our own experience than from what others say.
The Swiss and Swedes are usually smart and capable; but their inability to understand our language when they first come to us, makes their instruction difficult and tedious, unless the mistress is well versed in foreign languages.
A good Welsh girl is one of the best,—usually neat, active, and quick to learn; and as the pastors of the Welsh churches hold it a part of their duty to exercise careful supervision over those under their charge, that acts as a great safeguard.
There are no better servants to be found than such as come from Canada and Nova Scotia, if one can secure such as bring from their own country a genuinely good character. Naturally hardy and industrious, they are not the kind of girls who begin by asking, “How many in the family? How large is the washing? Have you stationary wash-tubs? What privileges do you allow your girls?” But whatever they are told to do, if within the compass of their ability, they do it more willingly and cheerfully than most. But there are not a large number of the Swiss, Swedish, Welsh, or Nova Scotia girls to be had, nor are all who come to our country of the better sort; so that whichever way we turn for domestic help, one is almost compelled to feel as if buying tickets in a lottery.