38.  This incident is founded on fact. Many of our readers will doubtless recollect the case of J——N——and her mother, who were convicted of robbing ready-furnished lodgings about ten years ago. Miss J——N——had been the mistress of a noble lord who was a Cabinet Minister at the time of the condemnation of her mother and herself, and who is a Cabinet Minister at the present moment. The affair created a great sensation at the time; but the Dispatch and other independent newspapers took it up; not in order to persecute the unhappy women, but on public grounds. The result was that the original sentence passed upon them, and which Ministerial favouritism sought to commute to a much milder penalty, was carried into force. The entire business, so far as the noble lord was concerned, was vile and scandalous in the extreme.

39.  We avail ourselves of the opportunity afforded us by the glance which we are taking at this subject, to recommend to perusal an admirable little work, written by our esteemed and talented friend, Mr. John Taylor Sinnett, and entitled "The Servant Girl in London." It is published by Hastings, Carey Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields; and is a little book which should be found in all families, as it contains sentiments and precepts useful alike to the employer and the employed.

In a work from which we have frequently quoted in the Notes belonging to the present Series of "The Mysteries of London,"—we allude to "Poverty, Mendicity, and Crime,"—we find an important passage bearing strongly upon the subject of the text. It runs as follows:—"We must now direct attention to the class of female servants, and they form no insignificant number: from these the higher ranks of our prostitutes are recruited. Thirst for dress and finery, which has crept on to such a degree that it is not a very rare sight to behold them waiting on their mistress in the morning, bedecked in silks and ornaments equal to the young ladies themselves, even where the ladies are of the highest class of the community. Great censure is due to ladies, especially those who are mothers, for not restraining their servants from squandering away the whole of their money, loss of place ought to be the consequence of not laying by a small portion of wages to sustain themselves in the event of illness or other unforeseen calamity; the dress of a female servant ought to be good, but perfectly void of ridiculous ornament and frippery. The ladies' maids of our aristocracy are a race the most highly culpable of their sex, aping all the pride and airs of their lady, and desiring to appear abroad with equal éclat, to effect which, the wardrobe of the mistress is not unfrequently resorted to, and the purse not always held sacred, or she becomes a prostitute whilst under the roof of her employer, till descending from one false step to another she at length links her fate to some favourite of the swell mob, to whom she at first listened as a suitor, and ends in her being accessary to robbing the family which had fostered her. It is ascertained, beyond doubt, that most of the houses that are robbed, arises from the connexion and intimacy which the servant has contracted with some of the petty workmen who have been employed about the premises, many of whom are thieves themselves, or connected with some gang of villains who resort to that expedient to learn what property is kept on the premises, and how it is disposed of at night. 'A great deal of crime,' says Mr. Nairn, in his evidence, 'is generated in consequence of the tradesmen who employ journeymen to work for them, in gentlemen's houses, not taking care to inquire into their character: by getting acquainted with servants, they get a knowledge of those parts of the house where anything valuable is kept. A number of men that were in the prison were painters, plasterers, and bricklayers, they were in the practice of communicating with thieves, and it is in that secret manner that they get information where property is kept.'—Vide J. H. Nairn, p. 370, 2nd Report, Lords, on State of Gaols, 1835.

"There is a most infamous conspiracy existing between the purveyors or housekeepers of the aristocracy and their tradespeople, the latter paying the former a large per centage on the bills for the sake of 'gaining their custom.' Twenty per cent. is often given, and it has been known to rise as high as fifty; unfortunately, the nobleman considers it as derogatory to his high rank to look into his pecuniary domestic affairs; but taking it in a moral point of view, it is his duty to do so for the sake of preventing this species of peculation, which is an absolute theft and one of the stepping-stones to crime generally, as the money so attained is mostly as lightly spent, and the servants out of place for a length of time, the difficulty to procure the wherewithal to keep alive their former extravagance makes them not hesitate to become regular thieves, the fine sense of honesty having been destroyed by the transaction with the tradesman, who had not failed, in his turn, to make out a bill more than sufficiently long to cover merely his generosity in bestowing Christmas boxes upon the domestics of his patron. These tradesmen are a rank disgrace to their more honest fellow shopkeeper; they are worse than fences, and it is greatly to be regretted that a complete expose cannot take place, and all such tradesmen dealt with according to their merit.

"Another evil in society that is pregnant with mischief is giving a false character to servants, which ladies are constantly in the practice of doing, to avoid being plagued, or 'perhaps,' as they say, 'insulted by the discarded servant,' whose character, if correctly stated, would not be such as easily to procure a new situation; thus a pilferer having once had the luck to start off in a private family with a good name, is from this shameful habit let loose upon the public to commit his depredations at leisure and convenience, with the chance of blame falling upon an honest individual, through the crafty machination of the wicked. By making servants conscious that they would only procure such a character as they really deserve, great good would accrue to the public generally, and the servants themselves would be taught to curb their temper and other bad propensities, by which they would become infinitely more contented and happy beings, and valuable members of society.

"It is too often the case that servants are looked upon as little better than slaves, and so to treat them. To say the least of such conduct it is unwise, for in proportion to the kindness with which they are treated, so will they study in return to make us enjoy numberless little comforts so delightful to experience, and which it is in their power to give life to or destroy. Humanity ought to suggest that the situation in which these persons are placed, witnessing nightly those scenes of pleasure, without being permitted to join in them, is sufficiently grating, for they all have their feelings, in common with the best of us, and it ought to be one of the first cares of the heads of families to lighten, as far as consistent with the rules and shades of society, the state and labours of their dependants. In France the servants are in an enviable condition compared with those of England, and if the plan were followed in this country, giving them their little pleasures, many a one, whose propensities were wavering, would be confirmed in virtue, and become a useful member, instead of a disgrace to society."