Records 



29 



of remaining servantless. It is also a fact that the really 

 efficient and skilful servant is often possessed of undesirable 

 morals, and that the girl who is honest and virtuous may, on 

 the other hand, be totally incompetent. 



Nevertheless, most of the satisfactory records which I have 

 quoted seem to me to prove a real efficiency ; some others, 

 however, not quoted, contained remarks such as these : " Not 

 a girl of great attainments, but kept her places steadily," " did 

 fairly well in service, &c." Now, the homes from which all 

 these girls are taken were, with scarcely an exception, parti- 

 cularly bad ones. As I have said before, "efficiency" is a 

 relative term ; so that when I have found the child of a 

 drunkard, or a prostitute, or a vagrant " doing fairly well in 

 service," or " keeping her places steadily," I have classed her 

 as satisfactory ; she is at any rate no longer a member of 

 Class A. 



Most of these records date from 1 896 onwards ; there are 

 some earlier ones to which I have already referred. 



Types of Satisfactory Cases. 



