[305] The women connected with two churches in a city in Indiana have maintained for some time such sales, and they have proved very remunerative. In one city in New Jersey $1,200 was raised in a few weeks to pay a church mortgage. In a Long Island village several hundred dollars was raised for a similar purpose by the women of the church, who took orders for cooking and sewing. In an Iowa city funds were obtained in this way for missionary purposes. In a village of five hundred inhabitants, in Central New York, the women of one of the churches have sold, every Saturday afternoon for eight years, ices and ice-creams, and have cleared annually about seventy-five dollars. In another town, several women of limited incomes began paying their contributions to the church by baking bread and cake for other families, and finding it remunerative continued the work as a means of support. In one Western city an annual sale is held at Thanksgiving time, and about one hundred dollars netted for home missionary purposes.
[306] The Woman’s Exchange, The Forum, May, 1892.
[307] Many illustrations of this can be given outside of those connected with the Exchange:
Mrs. A, in Central New York, has made a handsome living by making chicken salad to be sold in New York City.
Mrs. B, in a small Eastern village, has for several years baked bread, pies, and cake for her neighbors, and in this way has supported herself, three children, and a father. She has recently built a separate bakehouse, and bakes from thirty to one hundred loaves daily, according to the season, and other things in proportion. She says she always had a “knack” at baking, and that when she employs an assistant she has nearly every afternoon to herself.
Mrs. C, in a Western city, supports herself, three children, and an invalid husband, by making cake.
Mrs. D makes a good living by selling Saratoga potatoes to grocers.
Mrs. E has cleared $400 a year by making preserves and jellies on private orders.
Mrs. F partially supports herself and family by making food for the sick.
Mrs. G supports a family of five by making jams and pickles.
Mrs. H has built up a large business, employing from three to five assistants, in making cake and salad.
Mrs. I, in a small Eastern city, began by borrowing a barrel of flour, and now has a salesroom where she sells daily from eighty to one hundred dozen Parker House rolls, in addition to bread made in every possible way, from every kind of grain.
Mrs. J, in a small Western city, sells salt-risings bread to the value of $30 a week; and Mrs. K, in the same place, Boston brown bread to the value of $75 a week.
Mrs. L, living on a farm near a Southern city, has built up “an exceedingly remunerative business” by selling to city grocers preserves, pickles, cakes, and pies. “One cause of her success has been the fact that she would allow no imperfect goods to be sold; everything has been of the best whether she has gained or lost on it.”
Mrs. M supports herself by taking orders for fancy cooking.
Mrs. N, living in a large city, sells to grocers baked beans and rolls.
Mrs. O, in New York City, has netted $1,000 a year by preparing mince-meat and making pies of every description.
Mrs. P, in a small village on Lake Superior, has large orders from cities in Southern Michigan for strawberry and raspberry jam.
Mrs. Q, in a country village of five hundred inhabitants, sells thirty loaves of bread daily.
Mrs. R and two daughters last year netted $1,500 (above all expenses except house rent) in preparing fancy lunch dishes on shortest notice, and delicacies for invalids.
Mrs. S puts up pure fruit juices and shrubs.
Mrs. T prepares consommé in the form of jelly ready to melt and serve.
Mrs. U has made a fair income by preparing and selling fresh sweet herbs.
These illustrations can be multiplied indefinitely. They have come to notice in nearly every state in the Union, and in places varying in size from country villages without railroad stations to such cities as Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York.
[308] Mrs. A has for several years gone from house to house at stated times sweeping and dusting rooms containing fine bric-à-brac.
Mr. B cares for all of the lawns of a large number of gentlemen, each of whom pays him a fixed sum for the season in proportion to the size of his grounds.
Mr. C cares for all of the furnaces and clears the walks in a city block.
Mrs. D earns a partial support by arranging tables for lunches and afternoon teas.
Mrs. E washes windows once in two weeks for a number of employers.
Mrs. F takes charge of all arrangements for afternoon teas.
Mrs. G earns $3 a day as a cook on special occasions.
Miss H waits on a table in a boarding house three hours a day.
Miss I distributes the clothes from the laundry in a large city school.
Mrs. J is kept busy as a cook, serving as a substitute in kitchens temporarily vacant.
Mrs. K derives a considerable income from the supervision of party suppers. “Her social position is quite unaffected by it.”
Mrs. L “makes herself generally useful” at the rate of ten cents an hour if regularly employed and twenty cents when serving occasionally.
Mrs. M goes out as a waitress at lunches and dinners.
Mrs. N employs a young man working his way through school to keep wood-boxes and coal-hods filled.
Many college students in cities partially pay their expenses by table service.
Hotels and restaurants frequently send out waiters on special occasions.
One employer writes, “I think a central office in this city at which competent waitresses could be hired by the hour would be largely patronized.”
The Syracuse, New York, Household Economic Club publishes a Household Register, giving the names and addresses of all persons in the city who do by the piece, hour, or day all forms of household work. Thirty-five different classes of work are enumerated.
[309] See also article on the “Revival of Hand Spinning and Weaving in Westmoreland,” by Albert Fleming, Century Magazine, February, 1889.
[310] One writes, “I find it much better to employ one servant and to hire work by the piece, and to purchase from the Exchange, rather than to employ an extra servant.”
Another housekeeper writes: “I began housekeeping twelve years ago with three servants and had more than enough work for all. I now have two and have not enough work for them, although my family is larger than at first. The change has come from putting work out of the house and hiring much done by the piece.”
A business man writes: “Our family is happier than it ever dared hope to be under the sway of Green Erin. We purchase all baked articles and all cooked meats as far as possible. A caterer is employed on special occasions, and work that cannot be done by the parents, three children, and two aunts, who compose the family, is hired by the hour. Since we signed our Declaration of Independence in 1886, peace has reigned.”
Still another says: “I used to employ a laundress in the house at $4 per week and board. I was also at expense in furnishing soap, starch, bluing, and paid a large additional water tax. Now my laundress lives at home, and does my laundry there for $4 per week, and we are both better satisfied.”
Several small families who do “light housekeeping,” have found that they have in this way been able to live near the business of the men of the family, and thus have kept the family united and intact, as they could not have done had it been necessary to employ servants.
One employee writes, “If more housework were done by the day so that more women could be with their families in the evening, I think it would help matters.”
[311] Seventeenth Annual Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, p. 157.
[312] Profit Sharing between Employer and Employee, p. 8.
[313] Methods of Industrial Remuneration, p. 158.
[314] Schloss, Methods of Industrial Remuneration, p. 173.
[315] Gilman, Profit Sharing, p. 189.
[316] Seventeenth Annual Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor, p. 178.
[317] Schloss, Report on Profit Sharing, p. 157.
[318] Ibid., p. 160.
[319] Schloss, Report on Profit Sharing, pp. 158-159.
[320] Schloss, Methods of Industrial Remuneration, pp. 173-174.
[321] Schloss, Report, p. 158.
[322] Wright, Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, 1886, p. 231.
[323] Ibid., p. 172.
[324] This included the purchase of two new labor-saving appliances for the kitchen, costing $5.70. The maid was given the choice of having the new utensils or dividing a surplus; she chose the former.
[325] This included the presence in the family of two guests for two weeks.
[326] One housekeeper reports that she gives her cook five cents for every new soup, salad, made-over dish, or dessert that proves acceptable to the majority of the family. She thus secures variety and economy in the use of materials.
One reports that she has a German cook who understands thoroughly the purchase and use of all household materials. The cook is given a fixed sum each week with which to make purchases, and she keeps whatever sum remains after these have been made. The family report that they have never lived so well, or with so much comfort and so much economy as since the plan has been tried.
Another states that she adds at the end of the month twenty per cent to the wages of her waitress if no article of glass or china has been nicked, cracked, or broken during the time.
These are all variations of the same principle.
[327] An admirable work on Household Sanitation has been published by Miss Marion Talbot and Mrs. Ellen S. Richards.
[328] The work in this direction carried on by Professor W. O. Atwater of Wesleyan University has been of the greatest value, and indicates the lines along which future investigation must be made.
[329] Letter to the Clergy of the Diocese of New York, May 15, 1886.
[330] The Century, June, 1894.
[331] An excellent classification of standards of work and wages has been drawn up by the committee on Household Economics of the Civic Club of Philadelphia. See Appendix III.
[332] Maria Mitchell, p. 26.
[333] “However grievous the ‘servant problem’ may be in some English households, it sinks into insignificance when compared with the conditions on the other side of the Atlantic.” Alice Zimmern, in The Leisure Hour, May, 1899.
[335] This is apparently the case universally in France and in Italy. In Italy, while the washing is always done out of the house, the ironing is often done at home. In Lombardy “a woman of color” washes the colored clothes and flannels, which are kept distinct from the ordinary laundry. On the continent bed linen is often changed only once in two, three, or even four weeks—a custom that has at least the advantage of reducing to a minimum this part of the household work.
“In England it is becoming the rule, except in large households with laundries of their own, and in households managed on narrow means, to send this work out.”—Miss Collet, Report, p. 9.
“Washing is put out, as it is now almost impossible to get a girl who will do it.”—Employer, cited by Miss Collet, Report, p. 30.
[336] In some parts of Switzerland women come in from outside every six weeks and do all the laundry work of a household for that period.
[337] The legal relations between employer and employee are everywhere prescribed with more or less fulness, but in Germany the laws are very minute in character, while the contract in particular is much more rigid, and it is carried out in much greater detail than elsewhere. The laws for Prussia are given in Posseldt, while a summary for the Empire is given in Braun. Each state has its own laws on the subject, but as far as I have been able to examine them, they are practically the same in principle.
I am indebted to Mrs. John H. Converse for permission to use an exhaustive statement of the legal relations between mistress and maid in England prepared by Mrs. Henry C. Lea of Philadelphia.
Weber, in Les Usages locaux, sums up many of the points in French law.
[338] Braun, chaps. VII., XI.
“In England situations are usually subject to a month’s notice on either side.”—Booth, VIII., 221.
No special contract is made in France, with the result that “one changes domestics these days almost as often as political convictions.”—Weber, p. 45.
In Italy, also, no special contract is required, though a servant cannot be turned off without giving him ten days’ notice or a week’s wages.
[339] Posseldt, p. 75. Braun, chap. XIV.
But under many circumstances, specified with great exactness, a servant may be legally dismissed without notice. Posseldt, pp. 64-70, gives a list of nineteen cases where this may be done in Prussia; the laws for Saxony are very similar (pp. 28-30); Braun, chap. XII., gives twenty-one.
[340] Braun, p. 64. In Saxony he is at liberty to choose between returning to his place, paying a fine of 30M., or being imprisoned for eight days. Gesindeordnung für das Königreich Sachsen, p. 8.
The employee is also privileged under certain conditions to break the contract without notice. Braun, chap. XII., enumerates seven. These are the same in Prussia, Posseldt, pp. 70-74; Schork, p. 38, gives only five for Baden.
[341] The fine in Saxony is a maximum one of 150M., and the imprisonment the maximum one of six weeks. Gesindeordnung, p. 10.
[342] Weber says, “If you have serious complaints to make, either seek legal redress or say nothing.” Pp. 53-54.
[343] In Italy the servant is protected by very stringent laws punishing slander and defamation.
[344] In England “the majority of adult male indoor domestic servants are in large households employing over six servants.”—Miss Collet, Report, p. 23.
“Every English man-servant is apt to consider himself a specialist.... This want of elasticity has led to his gradual disappearance from all except the most wealthy households.”—Booth, VIII., 227.
In Italy cooks are very generally men. In France nearly all domestic work in the provincial hotels is performed by men. In Germany waiters are, as a rule, men.
[345] This competition is not wholly unknown. In a pension in Athens the second waiter, a Greek, left because unwilling to take orders from an Armenian head waiter. French servants sometimes go to the French cantons of Switzerland, and the reverse. The same is true of German and Italian servants who are found in the German and the Italian cantons. But the permanent migration of servants from one country to another, especially on the continent, is very slight. The reason usually given is, “They do not understand the ways of another country and are unhappy in it.”
[346] “Not only will the foreigner work for less wages, but he is better educated and more thoroughly trained. Whilst in this country a waiter’s duties are ‘picked up’ in an irregular way, in Germany or Switzerland the work is properly taught by a regular system of apprenticeship. The knowledge of continental language which the foreigner possesses is found useful, and he has, moreover, a higher reputation than our own countrymen for neatness and civility.”—Booth, VIII., 235.
[347] English, French, and German are universally spoken by waiters in all the large hotels and pensions on the continent. Two or three other languages in addition are often found. One waiter in a very primitive hotel in Olympia, Greece, spoke eight. This can scarcely be considered exceptional. “The waiting staff of the great modern hotels consists mainly of foreigners.”—Booth, VIII., 231-232.
[348] In certain quarters of London the boarding-houses are full of waiters who have come over from the continent to learn English. Many waiters not French by birth took advantage of the Exposition in 1900 to improve their French by going to Paris at that time. It is not unusual for travellers to be asked concerning possible openings in hotels and pensions where waiters would have an opportunity of learning a new language.
[349] For wages in England, see Miss Collet, Report on the Money Wages of Indoor Domestic Servants, and Booth, VIII., 217, 221-224, 227-228, 231-235; for wages in France, M. Bienaymé in Journal de la Société de Statistique de Paris, November, 1899, and M. Salomon in La Nouvelle Revue, February 1, 1886. I have been unable to find satisfactory statistics concerning the wages paid in Germany and in Italy. Numerous inquiries lead me to believe that they are somewhat lower in Italy and in Spain than elsewhere (an English housekeeper residing in Spain for twenty-five years reports that general servants in Spain receive from $1.25 to $2.00 a month, cooks, who are considered “artists,” receiving somewhat more), and that in Germany the variations are not so great as in England in the wages paid in different classes of society. This, however, is but an impression, and the judgment cannot be considered authoritative.
[350] “We understand that the plan of paying board-wages throughout the year instead of providing food is increasing, and is usually at the rate of 16s. per week for upper men-servants, 14s. for footmen, and 12s. to 14s. for women-servants.”—Booth, VIII., 230.
“Another disturbing feature in many Irish households is the practice of paying ‘breakfast wages’ in some cases, and ‘full board’ wages in others.”—Miss Collet, Report, p. 10.
[351] M. Babeau says that in France as far back as 1692 a good cook expected presents at Easter and on Saint Martin’s day as well as at New Year’s. P. 283.
“To the 600 francs (given a domestic in the fashionable quarters of Paris) must be added gifts and New Year’s presents.”—M. Jules Simon, cited by M. Salomon, p. 549.
“A usually substantial Christmas box is given the waiters in West-End London clubs.”—Booth, VIII., 231.
In Germany, while a servant cannot legally claim presents at Christmas, New Year’s, and similar times (Welche Rechte und Pflichten haben Herrschaft und Gesinde? p. 30), the custom of giving them is universal. “I would not dare to give less than thirty marks at Christmas to the cook and twenty marks to the chambermaid.”—German housekeeper, Dresden.
It is not uncommon in Germany for housekeepers to give presents on the anniversaries of the days their servants come to them, and medals on special anniversaries, as the tenth or twenty-fifth. This explains the custom of the German Housewives’ Society in New York of presenting $10 gold pieces to employees who have served faithfully for two years in the home of a member of the society. The Evening Post (New York), December 12, 1900.
“I always give my cook twenty lire at Christmas and ten lire at the fête of the Madonna.”—Italian housekeeper, Milan.
[352] “I often give a present of two marks between times, pay often for extra service, and give my servants a great deal of cast-off clothing. The head of a factory is not obliged to propitiate the bad temper and sullen moods of his employees with gifts and fees as we housekeepers have to do.”—German housekeeper, Berlin.
“I give my cook a great deal of my husband’s cast-off clothing and the housemaid much of my own.”—Italian housekeeper, Rome.
[353] “I would not think of leaving less than two shillings with the housemaid when I have spent a night in a friend’s house.”—Englishwoman, Cambridge.
“I always leave five shillings with the servant when I spend Sunday with friends, and as she always seems glad to see me when I return I imagine it is enough.”—Englishwoman, London.
The traditional reply ascribed to Hanway (Bouniceau-Gesmon, p. 134) in declining an invitation from an English lord, “I am not rich enough to dine with you,” is typical of what one often hears in England.
“Vails to servants in households where a considerable number of visitors are entertained must be an important item in the real earnings of servants.”—Miss Collet, Report, p. 29.
An admirable discussion of the whole subject of fees paid by guests is given by W. J. Stillman in The Nation, October 11, 1900. See also The Nation, November 8, 1900. Mr. Albert Matthews in The Nation, December 13, 1900, cites an extract from the London Chronicle that shows that the custom dates back certainly as far as 1765.
Babeau, pp. 301-302, discusses the abuses of the custom in France, though they are less there than in Italy, and especially in England “where one cannot go out to dine without encountering, on leaving, all the servants drawn up in line and holding out their hands.”
[354] “It is very stupid, but it is generally done.”—German housekeeper, Dresden.
“The cook makes about three marks a month in this way.”—German housekeeper, Berlin.
“The ‘sou in the franc’ that certain tradesmen agree to give servants is not only tolerated, but it is recognized as a right.”—M. G. Salomon, p. 549.
“In the expression ‘theft’ we do not hesitate to include the ‘dancing of the basket’; the ‘sou in the franc’ given by some dealers does not constitute an act of disloyalty on the part of the domestic. It is for the master, if he would escape this tax, to levy it on the tradesmen less clever in advertising, unless he is very sure that the merchant makes the servant this allowance out of his profits alone.”—Weber, p. 47.
“In fact, the part taken by our servants in the purchase and use of almost all articles of consumption makes a necessary increase in the wages paid. Thus even before coming to the kitchen, provisions undergo an increase in cost from the fact that they are bought by the mercenary person who attends to the marketing; this does not include customary augmentations, the sou per pound or the sou in the franc, said to be met by the merchant, and certain others which, on account of their constant increase, deserve special mention.”—Bienaymé, pp. 366-367.
“What is done by these servants hired for a limited time? They go to the merchant and impose upon him the law of division of profits. The merchant raises the price, and the stranger buys the article for more than it should cost. These servants even levy a tax upon the eating-house keeper; the livery-stable keeper is obliged to pay them as much as twenty sous a day; these profits have become customary.”—Mercier, V., 156.
Bouniceau-Gesmon, pp. 107-113, cites from an unnamed English author a long account of similar practices in England.
“My cook always gets three lire from the butcher and three from the grocer at Christmas.”—Italian housekeeper.
[355] M. Colletet narrates the story of a young girl from the country who was told of a situation where in addition to her regular wages she could get various profits, such as ashes, old shoes, remnants of bread and meat, and various tidbits.—Le Tracas de Paris, p. 229.
M. Babeau, p. 283, cites from Fournier, Vanités historiques et littéraires, V., 243-257, the advice of an old servant to a new one as to ways of cheating his master, such as burning much wood in order to have many ashes, saving from articles for the table, etc. It is thus that a cook has been able to lay up enough to buy five large farms, while her husband, the coachman, has on his part saved out of the hay and straw bought for the stables.
“A large number of cooks increase these profits by illicit gains, and the tradesmen themselves, with no other reason than the fear of losing their customers, obligingly wink at, or rather become parties in, this trickery.”—M. Jules Simon, cited by M. Salomon, p. 549.
“The cook either brings short weight or reports paying a higher price than he has paid—he has many dodges. The housekeeper must weigh over again the articles purchased, or go to market to ascertain, if possible, the real price of articles bought, or submit to imposition.”—Housekeeper in Spain.
[356] Under this head come cast-off clothing, skins of animals, bones, tallow, drippings, etc. A. Weber, Les Usages locaux, p. 48.
[357] “Beer (or beer money) is allowed at the rate of about one pint a day for women-servants.”—Booth, VIII., 220 (1896).
Miss Collet considers it established that in England the custom of paying beer money is dying out, many employers not only give no beer money but also give no beer. Report, p. 29 (1899).
In Italy women-servants are allowed one-half pint of wine per day, and men-servants one pint. The wine is given out each day, or the money equivalent at the end of the month.
[358] Les Usages locaux, p. 52.
[359] The laws of insurance against accident, sickness, invalidism, and old age compel the employer to pay one-half the insurance,—about three dollars per year. It is said, however, that as a rule the employer pays the entire amount. It is true this amount is small in families employing but one servant and paying low wages, but where several servants are kept and high wages given the total amount is considerable. On the other hand, the burden is often relatively, though not absolutely, heavier in the family with one servant on low wages, since this means a small income. The amount of insurance varies with the wages, but the wages received by most domestics place them in Class II. The government rates board and lodging received by servants at 350M. per annum, and this with the cash wages received puts the insurance at about three dollars annually, an amount slightly in excess of that paid by the employees in Class I. See Unfallversicherungsgesetz, Krankenversicherungsgesetz, and Das Reichsgesetz über die Invaliditäts- und Altersversicherung. Each of the states of the Empire has its own Gesindeordnung and the conditions of insurance are often stated in these.
[360] In France scarcely forty years ago it was considered impossible to ascertain the wages paid domestic servants. Statistique de la France. Prix et salaires à diverses époques. Paris, 1863. Cited by M. Gustave Bienaymé in Journal de la Société de Statistique de Paris, November, 1899.
[361] M. Bienaymé has attempted, with the aid of information gained through employment bureaus, personal recollections, household expense books, and similar means, to give the wages paid in France since 1815. The results of his investigations seem to show that wages in nearly every branch of domestic service have steadily increased since that time, until now the wages of an ordinary cook are 50 francs per month and a chambermaid the same, while a general servant receives 40 francs per month, the wages of all these classes of house servants having doubled the past sixty years. At the same time the cost of maintenance has also increased. He gives a table showing the increase, or in some cases the decrease, in wages in every branch of domestic service during this period. Journal de la Société de Statistique de Paris, November, 1899.
Practically the same estimates are given by M. Georges Salomon in “La Domesticité,” La Nouvelle Revue, February 1, 1886. He cites a similar opinion from M. Jules Simon.
Mr. Booth shows a gradual increase in the wages of servants as they grow older or are advanced to better positions, but this does not necessarily show a general increase from year to year. VIII., pt. II., passim.
Mr. A. E. Bateman considers it impossible to state, for England, what the movement of wages in domestic service has been. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, LXI., 264-265.
[362] An account of the protest against this on the part of the “Amalgamated Waiters’ Society” is given by the London correspondent of The Evening Post (New York) in the issue of December 10, 1900.
[363] A writer in Le Matin (Paris) of April 15, 1900, urges the formation of a society each member of which shall pledge himself not to give fees.
[364] Mr. William Clarke, in The Social Future of England, sums up the character of domestic service in England in saying: “It is true that English middle-class service is bad, and even growing worse, and this will continue so long as factory labor is preferred to domestic service. But there is probably no country where the wealthy can secure such efficient and fairly honest service in the butler, valet, lady’s maid, and housekeeper lines as in England.”—The Contemporary Review, December, 1900.
The historical question whether the character of the service has ever been any better than it is at present must also remain unanswered for the same reason. Pandolfini in Il Governo della Famiglia finds the philosophical explanation of poor service in Italy during the fifteenth century in the tendency of servants to seek their own interests rather than those of their masters—an explanation limited by neither time nor place. All literature goes to show that our own age is not alone in finding it difficult to secure those who will “carry the message to Garcia.”
[365] Barber of Seville, I., 2.
[366] The employer as a rule commands absolutely the time of the employee; for example, in Germany the employee spends her time in knitting for the family, in working out of doors, or in similar ways. The hours everywhere seemed to me much longer than those required in America, largely owing to the lateness of the evening meal, which is universally dinner in France, Italy, and England.
[367] The lack of elevators in even large apartment houses, the necessity of storing fuel—unless bought in small quantities—in the cellar, the absence of a common heating system, no arrangements for carrying water to every room and the difficulty of securing an adequate supply of hot water, the necessity of daily marketing, the little use of ice, the punctiliousness with which the top box on the top shelf of the closet must be dusted, especially in Germany and in Holland, the endless scrubbing of floors and stairs and polishing of brass and copper, the use of candles and kerosene in private houses and even in large pensions and hotels,—these are but suggestions of ways in which domestic service is much harder than it is in America.
[368] The living accommodations provided for employees seemed to me everywhere distinctly inferior to those provided in America. In London, “as far as possible the men are lodged in the basement, while the women have their rooms at the top of the house. This arrangement, though always desirable, often necessitates two or even three men using the servants’ hall as their bedroom, while another sleeps in the pantry, and another beneath the stairs. Breathing space is restricted and the want of air, and high living, coupled with the absence of hard work or exercise, lead naturally to a demand for some form of stimulant, with the result that numbers of men-servants ultimately take to drink.”—Booth, VIII., 228-229. The sleeping rooms given servants are small and cheerless, hot in summer and cold in winter, while often the only place provided for taking meals is a corner of the kitchen table.
[369] Bouniceau-Gesmon finds a fundamental difference between slavery and domestic service, as indeed there is, and denies that one is the outgrowth of the other, since the two have sometimes existed side by side. Domestiques et Maîtres, chap. I. But while the one is bond and the other free, and while the labor performed in both states is the same and should be honorable, the fact remains that the domestic servant has inherited to a great degree the social opprobrium that attached to the slave and the serf.
[370] Gil Blas, Figaro, and Lafleur have long stood as types of the eighteenth century valet. Walter Scott says of the former, “as to respect, it is the last thing which he asks at his reader’s hand.” [Biographical Memoir of Le Sage.] Both Dean Swift and Daniel DeFoe sharpened their pens with infinite pains in describing the servants of their times. At a later date the pencil of Cruikshank found employment in illustrating Mayhew’s Greatest Plague in Life, while Punch for years revelled in the opportunities afforded by “servant-gallism.” Babeau, Bouniceau-Gesmon, and Salomon show similar conditions in France. “Stealing is an infamous thing—it is the sin of a lackey,” remarks a priest to a pupil who confessed a theft. Cited by Babeau, p. 290. “To lie like a lackey” is almost proverbial.
[371] There are indeed many illustrations of servants of an altogether different character—Caleb in The Bride of Lammermoor and Marcel in The Huguenots are types of the faithful servitor who alike in prosperity and in adversity remains constant to the family in whose service he was born. The fact remains, however, that the servant exists as a type in European literature as he does not in that of America.
[372] La Nouvelle Revue, February 1, 1886.
[373] “It is, in fact, almost necessary to have an inherited aptitude for the relationship involved—a relationship very similar in some respects to that subsisting between sovereign and subject. From both servant and subject there is demanded an all-pervading attitude of watchful respect, accompanied by a readiness to respond at once to any gracious advance that may be made without ever presuming or for a moment ‘forgetting themselves.’”—Booth, VIII., 225.
[374] “The habits of servants in large houses and the strict observance of etiquette give rise to some very curious customs. There are three grades of servants, named ‘kitchen,’ ‘hall,’ and ‘room,’ after the places in which they take their meals.”—Booth, VIII., 229.
“There is no class less open to democratic ideas than a contented servant class. Compared with them their titled and wealthy employers are revolutionists. They cannot bear change, their minds are saturated with the idea of social grades and distinctions, they will not even live with one another on terms of social equality.”—William Clarke, Contemporary Review, December, 1900.
[375] Mercier speaks of establishments where valets and maids had themselves valets and lackeys (XI., 277), and says that generally a lackey in the upper classes takes the name of his master when he goes with other lackeys, as he also adopts his customs, his gestures, his manners, carries a gold watch, and wears lace; a lackey du dernier ton even wears two watches like his master (II., 124).
“The maid of a visitor ranks, of course, with the upper servants. She is addressed not by her own name, but by the surname or title of her mistress.”—Booth, VIII., 230.