Chap. X.] Expenses of House-keepixo. 101 



and a. good woman, servant twenty pounds sterling a year. 

 But, this IS not all ; for, in the first place, they will hire 

 only by the month. This is >\hat they, in lact, do in 

 England ; for, there they can quit at a month's learning. 

 The man will not wear a livery, any more than he will 

 wear a halter round his neck. This is no great matter ; 

 for, as your neighbours' men are of the same taste, you 

 expose yourself to no humiliation on this score. Neither 

 men nor women will allow you to call them servants, 

 and they will take especial care not to call themselves 

 by that name. This seems something very capricious, 

 at the least; and, as people in such situations of life, 

 really are servants, according to even the sense which 

 MosKs gives to the word, when he forbids the woi:king 

 of the inati servant and the 7naid scrva7it, the objection, 

 the rooted aversion, to the name, seems to bespeak, a 

 mixture of! false pride and of insolence, neither of which 

 belong to the American character, even in the lowest 

 walks of life. I will, therefore, explain the cause of 

 this dislike to the name of servant. When this country 

 was first settled, there were mo people that laboured for 

 other people ; but, as man is always trying to throw the 

 working part off his own shoulders, as we see by' the 

 conduct of priests in all ages, negroes were soon intro- 

 duced. Englishmen, who had fled from tyranny at 

 home, were naturally shy of calling other men their 

 slaves; and, therefore, '■^for more grace," as Master 

 Matthew says in the play, they called their slaves 

 servants. But, though I doubt not that this device was 

 quite elficient in quieting their own consciences, it gave 

 rise to the notion, that slave and servatit meant one and 

 the same thing, a conclusion perfectly natural and di- 

 rectly deducible from the premises. Ilence every free 

 man and woman have rejected with just disdain the 

 appellation of servant. One would think, however, 

 that they might be reconciled to it by the conduct of 

 some of their superiors in life, who, without the smallest 

 apparent reluctance, call themselves " Pidilic Servants," 

 in imitation, I suppose, of English Ministers, and bis 

 . Holiness, the Pope, M'ho, in the excess of his humility, 

 " ^Us himself, " the Servant of the Servants of the 

 tnrd,'* But, perhaps, the American Domestics teiY« 



