Revific of Reeiewa, Ijlljoe. 



Leadinq Articles. 



499 



BEING YOUR OWN SERVANT. 



In the Quiver Miss Elizabeth Banks discusses the 

 American woman's method of dispensing with ser- 

 vants. I infer that her article refers chiefly to 

 American women in the Western States ; at any 

 rate, New York women do not seem often to dis- 

 pense with ser\-ants. It seems, after all, much the 

 same state of things as prevails in New Zealand 

 and other colonies, except that in America the pro- 

 blem is evidently more acute. Miss Banks says: — 



Among dozens of my own college mat«s, and hundreds o{ 

 well-edncated married women with whom I have been 

 thrown into contact, I have found no servants. I have 

 discovered that the husbandg of many of these women — 

 doctors, lawyers, editors, real estate dealers, and clergy- 

 men, get up in the morning and " put the kettle on " tor 

 the convenience of tl^e wife, who hurries down later to get 

 the breakfast, and, if she ha.s children, wash, drees, and 

 comb them, and send them off to school. 



These ser\antless American households have 



generally telephones and all kinds of labour-saving 



conveniences unknown in English households. 



Often, apparently, they have the comfortless plan 



of allowing the children in every room ; and it reads 



as if tinned food were rather too prevalent. Even 



the washing and ironing is often undertaken by 



these energetic women. Of necessity, therefore, 



the majority of modem-built American flats and houses 

 are conveniently made for the very purpose of making the 

 wife's work as easy as possible, and that American shops 

 are full of handy contrivances which really do. according 

 to their advertisementa, "make housework easy." There 

 are the patent brooms, scmbbing-bruaheg and mops, cheap 

 telephone g>ervice, tlie fixing of messenger call-boxes by the 

 telegraph companies free of charge, and a thousand other 

 helpg. 



If Englishwomen were really to do their own 

 work, as thev sometimes feebly talk of doing, Miss 

 Banks rightly says London would have to be rebuilt 

 and remodelled on the American system. Even then 

 she doubts their succeeding, as the English gentle- 

 woman lacks what Americans call " go-aheadative- 

 ness '' (terrible word !), and what the colonial calls 

 adaptability — a perfectly just criticism. English 

 houses are not built to minimise labour and trouble. 

 Miss Banks says : — 



Whether the American woman who combines the duties 

 of wife, mother, nurse, cook, housemaid, club woman, 

 washerwoman, student of Greek, musician, and what-not. 

 becomes thus a queen or a mere drudge is a question for 

 dispute. Personally. I am inclined to the opinion that she 

 ie more drudge than queen, and not by any means to be 

 envied by her English cousins, who think they have a 

 servant problem and are desirous of knowing how the 

 American woman manages to do her own housework and 

 so rid herself of the annoyances that help to make miser- 

 able the English life. 



In tlie Zeiisihrift fiir BiMende Kunst for August 

 Franz Rieffel has an interesting article on the new 

 " Cranach," acquired by the Sta<lel Institute at 

 Frankfort. The altar-piece, a triptych, repre»sents 

 the Holy Family — in the centre Mary, Anna, and 

 .Joseph. Anna Ls holding the infant Christ: above 

 are .loachim and the two former lutsband.s of Anna. 

 On the left wing Cinside) Alphaeus and Maria Cleo- 

 phas. with their children ; and on the riglit Zebedee 

 and Mary Salome, and their children, .James the 

 elder and .John the F.vangelist. The picture, which 

 was painted in 1.509, has a further interest for Ger- 

 mans, since the features of various princes are re- 

 cognisable in .>^ome of the figures. 



THE SCANDINAVIAN IN AiMERlCA. 



Mr. Hrolf Wisby, writing in the Norl/i American 

 Rcvinv for .August, on the status of the Scan- 

 dinavian Americans, pays them a very high tribute. 

 They display more enterprise in the New World 

 than in Scandinavia: — ■ 



Norwegian property-owners permit opportunities to go. at 

 a fractional percentage of their real value, into the hands 

 of German and English capitalists. In other words, the 

 owners leave a fortune at their doorstep, and often without 

 realising the fact, to face the hardships of the settler here. 

 Somehow, America seems to have an exhilarating effect on 

 these people, for here they acquire initiative to realise 

 their opportunities. 



The result ds that the 400.000 Norwegians now in this coun- 

 try possess 20.000,000 dels., or almost as mnoh ready money 

 as is owned by the 2,240,000 Norwegians in Norway, who 

 have only nine dollars per capita, or 20,150,000 dels.! In 

 other words, though the Scandinavians here only constitute 

 a little over a ninth part of the Scandinavian peoples, 

 they are five times richer per capita, and own in cash 

 money an amount equal to three-fifths of all the money in 

 circulation in Scandinavia. 



They settle on the land and become admirable 



citizens : — 



Fome-sicknesa is the Scandinavian's worst malady, but a 

 trip on tJie "Christmas Ships," which annually take thou- 

 sands of fur-clad Northmen to the native board for a b-ief 

 sojourn, has proved to be the best cure The home-sick 

 man soon discovers that he has outgrown the conditions be- 

 setting home lite. In the second generation there is but a 

 very faint trace of national feeling, and gradually America 

 absorbs him. 



Of the three Scandinavian nations Mr. Wisby 



says : — ■ 



The Norwegians are clannish. The mountains made 

 them so. They are headstrong and devoid of good manners, 

 like a true peasant folk, though good-hearted enough, to be 

 sure. The Swedes are the politest and most humane people 

 of the North, and prone to resent the strong-hearted Nor- 

 wegian attitude as an insult to their feelings; hence the 

 trouble that has now been adjusted by Norway's setting up 

 a separate government. The Danes present a sort of happy 

 medium between the extreme polish of the Swedes and the 

 pronounced bluntness of the Norwegians, but they are, on 

 the other hand, altogether too liable to melancholy and 

 indifference. 



IS ANGLO-SAXON FRIENDSHIP A MYTH ? 



In the New York Critic for August '■ An Ameri- 

 can long resident in England " says that if he were 

 to live in England for a hundred years he could 

 never forget that he was a stranger in a strange 

 land. Time has convinced him that nowhere is it 

 so hard for an American to feel at home as in Eng- 

 land. This does not seem to augur well for an 

 entetiie cordiale between the United States and Eng- 

 land. The writer says: — 



The truth is, we never have understood one another since 

 our forefathers left England, because they could endure the 

 country no longer; we never shall understand one anotler 

 while America remains America and England is the Eng- 

 land we linow. . „ , , , ■ 



In hia isolation John Bull opened the floodgates of his 

 affection upon us. of a sudden recognising in us not merely 

 a' friend, but a relation. We ceased to be Yankees— we were 

 transformed into Anglo-Saxons. All Britain rang with the 

 new entente cordiale. the English language apparently having 

 no word for so un-English a sentiment. 



The Anglo-Saxon is an alliance to keep on misunderstand- 

 ing one another and pretending we think it friendship— 

 that is. it we in America hold to the part of the bargain 

 assigned to us. But the \merican cannot change hia In- 

 dependence nor the Briton shake off his prcjuilice. 



Surely this anonymous writer's experiences have 

 been exceptional during his long residence in Eng- 

 land. 



