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 — Keeeipts. 



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 ; 

 or, what is still more common with a young girl, under 

 a drunken cook, whom the mistress still believes in ; or 



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