FEBRUARY 195 



the position being different from what they undertook 

 when engaged, and think it better to make a change. 



One of the things that seems a remnant of other 

 days, and strikes servants themselves as being particu- 

 larly tyrannical, is being expected to attend family 

 prayers, whether they like it or not, and that, too, in 

 the midst of their morning work. But the attitude of 

 mind and the ways and customs of servants are as 

 incomprehensible to us as are those of the gipsies; and 

 to worry and hurry people who have not our views, 

 whose laws are not ours, whose morality is not ours, 

 whose customs are not ours, is a most useless tyranny, 

 be it directed against gipsies or against servants. These 

 manners and customs have grown up and are repeated 

 by servants over and over again, in a way that they 

 themselves often do not understand. One of their 

 invariable rules, which is often commented on, is that 

 servants almost without exception refuse to eat 

 game. It is generally supposed that this is because 

 game does not cost their masters and mistresses actual 

 money. This is so foolish a reason I cannot believe it 

 to have been the origin of the objection. I feel it is far 

 more likely that in the days before railways, when game 

 travelled slowly, it was the fashion for everybody to eat 

 high game ; but when it got past sending to table 

 unbought luxury though it was the thrifty house- 

 keeper suggested to the cook that the servants might 

 have it. They had far better opportunity than the 

 master upstairs of judging what state it was in, and I 

 confess I am not surprised that, as a body, they declined 

 to make their dinner off it. And so that mysterious 

 thing a custom grew up for servants not to eat game. 



Servants, even the best and most devoted, will not 

 'tell of each other.' It is useless to expect it: just as 

 useless as a master expecting boys to tell tales at a 



