THE LEGAL STATUS OF SERVANT-GIRLS. 803 



porary inflammation imperceptible to the health of the infinite 

 corpus. 



Thus I admit, with the pure dynamist, that the material universe, 

 or successive material universes (if such a solecism is pardonable), as 

 manifestations of matter and motion, are concatenated with time, are 

 born, run their course, and fade away, as do the clouds of air. But 

 the infinite reservoir of power wherein they occur as disturbances 

 remains. What can cause these manifestations of power these droop- 

 ings of energy, with their complicated results ? This is beyond our 

 finite ken ; but it is certain that the mere running through of its 

 course of a finite evolution does not end the eternal, the infinite, and 

 absolute. Nor can the mind be restricted to such a conception by any 

 argument about the limitation of its faculties. 



THE LEGAL STATUS OF SEEYANT-GIELS. 



By OLIVER E. LYMAN. 



SHORTLY after the Flood, as we are informed, Abram's wife 

 turned her domestic, Hagar, out of the house on account of her 

 arrogant conduct, which is perhaps the first authenticated instance on 

 record of trouble between mistress and servant-girl. This sort of 

 trouble, which began so early, still survives in forms so various and often 

 so exasperating as to raise the impatient question whether the serving 

 class is the only dark part of creation which improvement has failed 

 to reach. The question is, no doubt, full of aggravation and discour- 

 agement, yet there has been improvement, but it has been of slow at- 

 tainment, forming no exception to the great law of progressive social 

 amelioration. 



Social changes, it is to be remembered, especially of the alleviating 

 and elevating kind, are always slow. We are beginning to talk about 

 social evolution, and the new science of sociology which treats of it ; 

 but we have to take ages into account before we can realize any posi- 

 tive conception of advance. Much of the barbarism of early society 

 clings tenaciously to the domestic relations, while the modification of 

 human nature and the corresponding mitigation of social imperfec- 

 tions go on but very gradually, tardily, and partially. 



A still further reason for the slowness of improvement in the pres- 

 ent case arises from the peculiarity of the relations involved. In times 

 of early violence, it is the weak that are subjugated and enslaved, and, 

 as civilization advances, it is ever the lowest and most ignorant class 

 of any society that falls into the condition of menial servitude. The 

 feeblest, the least competent, the least provident, naturally sink to the 

 bottom of the social scale, and become the helpers, the dependents, 



