360 HOME LIFE IN FLORIDA. 



good teachers, their whole time, energy and thought, given 

 up to the business of their lives, and with an unlimited 

 amount of that practice which alone ''makes perfect," it 

 is not to be wondered at that the genuine old plantation 

 cooks excelled in their art. 



But after the new regime set in these cooks were scat- 

 tered abroad, and there remained no one whose interest it 

 was to train up the rising generation in the way of the 

 ''good cook." 



The Florida State papers are full of horticultural dis- 

 cussions and plans for the furtherance of fruit culture, 

 crops, freight rates, railroads, politics — every thing that 

 concerns the sterner sex ; but all the time there is one nu- 

 merous and powerful class of their readers whose pressing 

 needs they ignore almost entirely. 



The question of more help and competent house servants 

 for the Florida home is a grievous one, and bears heavily 

 on every frail, educated, refined wife and daughter in the 

 land, and should be earnestly heeded by every husband 

 and father, even if only from the selfish considerations 

 which actuated a certain German we once heard of. 



He had paid a housekeeper for some years, and finally 

 married her, explaining that he did so because he had 

 found out that " A vife is cheaper dan a vomans ; you has 

 to pay de vomans to do sometiuks ; but you no has to pay 

 de vife to do ebery tinks." 



We could point out to-day several men, who call them- 

 selves gentlemen, who not only leave their delicate wives 

 without even the poor help that might be secured, but also 

 expect them to cook, wash dishes, and wait on all the com- 

 pany it may suit their royal will to bring into the house, 

 and to cook and wash dishes for the colored laborers whom 

 they hire to do their ov;n w^ork for them. 



Such men as these will ultimately discover, as the old 



