184 MORE POT-POURRI 



FEBRUARY 



Mistresses and servants Difficulty of getting servants Girls 

 instead of boys Registry Offices The employments that do not 

 take up characters Early rising Baron Humboldt Coverings 

 for larders Blackbeetles Children's nurses Ignorance of 

 young married women Some natural history books Forcing 

 blossoming branches Horticultural Show Letter from San 

 Moritz Eeceipts. 



LAST year in February I wrote a little article on 

 mistresses and servants in the ' Cornhill Magazine.' It 

 was called forth by the report of a case in the Divisional 

 Court which seemed interesting at the time. The point at 

 issue was whether a servant was entitled to give notice at 

 any time within the first fortnight of her service, so as to 

 enable her to leave at the end of the first month. The 

 judgment did not settle the law of the case. My friends 

 complained that I more or less put forth the difficulties 

 of the present day with regard to mistresses and servants 

 especially the difficulty of the insufficient supply of 

 servants but that I suggested nothing new by way of a 

 solution. As the question is one of very general interest, 

 I think I will quote some part of the article, adding a 

 few practical suggestions which have occurred to me 

 since. 



Servants may, and often do, get into situations which 

 turn out to be entirely different from what they have 

 been led to expect. It may be even that they find 

 themselves in a ' bad ' house ; or with a drunken mistress ; 



