SERVITUDE. 409 



the various discussions respecting "lady-helps'' and " gentlemen - 

 helps," which bid fair to initiate a revolution in domestic life. 

 Servants are sometimes called the greatest plagues in life, but 

 it is difficult to see what could be done without them. 



Then there is the complaint that servants are not what they 

 used to be — the faithful retainers of the household, and con- 

 sidering themselves members of it. Perhaps not, but I have 

 had experience of several faithful retainers, and invariably 

 found them to be unmitigated tyrants, assuming power, repu- 

 diating responsibility, and being practically the master or 

 mistress of the household. 



Then we come to the great question of slavery in its various 

 bearings. 



Putting aside the now acknowledged diversity of races, and 

 the well-known fact that the negro in a state of slavery to a 

 European is infinitely better off than he would have been in his 

 own country, where there is no law but that of might, we must 

 entertain the question of enforced servitude, i.e. where the 

 servants have no choice either in entering or leaving their 

 situations. 



It is, of course, opposed, and rightly, to our modern English 

 ideas that a slave, under such a name, should exist on British 

 ground. Yet there are thousands of Englishmen who are 

 more wholly enslaved than was any negro in the worst times of 

 slavery. The chains may not be of visible iron, nor the 

 whips of tangible thongs, but they are, perhaps, all the more 

 galling and biting. 



Some of my readers may be aware that slavery exists in the 

 insect world, and probably existed long before man came on 

 earth. 



There are many species of Ants which are absolutely incapable 

 of managing their own nests or rearing their own young, and 

 which, in consequence, impress into their service the workers of 

 other species of Ant, and hand over to them the entire labour 

 of the establishment. They can fight, and they can establish 

 fresh colonies, but they cannot build nests, nor nurse their 

 young, and so they impress into their service those Ants whose 

 instinct teaches them to do both. 



Periodically the master Ants, if we may so call them, set off 



