FEBRUARY 189 



poor girls who seek employment just at the moment they 

 can least afford it. I could quote story on story of how 

 six, seven, or eight shillings are taken from a country girl 

 without the smallest return to herself ; indeed, in some 

 cases they simply retain any written references which she 

 may have given into their charge at their request. I 

 believe an effort is being made to meet this difficulty by 

 an association called ' The Guild of Begistries,' and it 

 certainly appears to be sadly wanted. 



A new agency has been lately started on rather 

 different lines in Derby Street, Mayfair, and conducted 

 by three house-stewards who have lived many years at 

 the head of large households. Their idea is that they are 

 perhaps better judges of the kind of servants applying for 

 situations than those with less experience can be. Also 

 they mean to get introductions to clergymen and the 

 heads of schools all over the country, so as to help girls 

 from villages who wish to go into service. The experi- 

 ment seems to me an interesting one. 



Things must still be very wrong when the proportion 

 of people who keep servants is so very small, and that of 

 the poor population so very large, and yet we continually 

 meet with the complaint that servants, especially under- 

 servants, are so difficult to find. 



As we get old^r, we most of us step into shoes we 

 should have vowed in our youth we never would put on, 

 and each one in his generation sees some progress in 

 civilisation which has ruined servants, and feels that good 

 servants are far more rare and difficult to find than they 

 were twenty, thirty, or (say) fifty years ago. Good 

 servants by which I mean unselfish, devoted human 

 beings are never likely to be a great glut in the market. 

 But then are extra good, judicious, sensible masters and 

 mistresses so very common ? 



Of all the deadly-dull subjects of conversation among 



