servants, or do not need more than one. Thus, we ought not to be surprised if we find at the approaching census that nearly half a million of Englishwomen are maids-of-all-work. At the last census they were considerably more than 400,000.
“But why consider them separately from other domestic servants in regard to health?” it may be asked.
Because they are conspicuously more unhealthy.
Maid-servants ought to be among the very healthiest people in the nation. They have generally enjoyed an active and hardy rearing: they are usually well-fed and lodged, and must be well clothed: they are singularly free from the most wearing anxieties of life; and their occupation involves a considerable degree of activity, usually without exhausting toil. They have severe annoyances at times and on occasion, from the faults of employers and fellow-servants; some find the mode of life dull; many miss the confiding and affectionate intercourses of home; and some must share the common lot of having personal griefs and cares. Domestic servants are not to be supposed happier than other people; but, when we are thinking, of wearing anxieties in their effect upon health, we may observe that there are fewer of such anxieties involved in the lot of domestic servants than in that of most other classes. If, as we find to be the case, the maids-of-all-work are less healthy than other servants—and even than cooks—it will be interesting and important to discover why.
Nearly all of this class come from the country. Upwards of two-thirds of our women servants of all orders are country-born, and the humbler are almost universally so. The girl who is to be hereafter expected to do everything that wants to be done in a house is born in a labourer’s cottage. As soon as she can crawl she tumbles about in the dirt, and learns the use of her limbs in Nature’s own way—by having a mind to use them, and nobody to prevent it. Her limbs and spine are thus vigorous and strong. She is always in the open air, or in the windy cottage. The paternal dwelling is not damp, as too many cottages are, or she would never be fit for service. A girl with rheumatism or a cough, or subject to head colds, would simply fail of getting a place; for mistresses of servants very properly require health as a prime requisite in all candidates for their place.
It is true, there are kind-hearted ladies, widowed or single, who rather look out for delicate servant girls, on the ground that a small household is the proper place for invalids who must earn a living to try to recover their health. Such employers in fact nurse and maintain their servants, helping them with their business, or indulgently excusing some irregularities in it; and I have seen a succession of unhealthy young women enter such a service, and leave it completely restored. But such employers are right in saying that theirs are the houses in which such a thing can be done, because it is of little consequence who does the daily business, and whether it is always exactly and punctually done: and such irregularity may even be good for single ladies who are only too likely to grow excessively “particular;” but it is out of the question in family dwellings where the business of life presses from day to day. In such households the first requisite in a domestic servant, after character, is health.
Our young servant, then, does not come in a mouldy or rotted condition from a damp cottage, but full of health and strength. She has lived on potatoes and buttermilk for the most part, and they have agreed well with her. She can lift great weights; she can bear to be on her feet all day; she wakes always at the same minute in the early morning; and she never thinks about being ill. She does not think about her bodily condition at all; for there are no aches and pains to remind her. Some people go through life without having ever felt their lungs; and others are unaware, except by rational evidence, that they have a stomach. Thus, many country-bred young people feel nothing particular, and are unaware of their physical state altogether.
The future of the country girl depends mainly on what sort of service she enters. It may be a household of two persons, or of only one. If she is to serve an elderly couple, or two or three maiden ladies, or a widow with one or two children, there is nothing in her mode of life to affect her health injuriously, and nothing therefore to require much attention from us. In such small households in the country, there is plenty of time to get easily through the business of the day: everybody is early in bed, and not extremely early in the morning. In such houses, in short, there is no wear and tear, in parlour or kitchen. A servant may live there till she has nursed and buried her employers, and be as hale after it as when she entered service.
By far the largest proportion of places where a single servant is kept are in the opposite extreme. If there is too much quiet in the spinster’s house, there is too much bustle in the town shopkeeper’s or the lodging-house. It is from those bustling houses that a succession of maid-servants come out to die. To these, then, we must direct our observation.
The first ailment of country girls in service is usually indigestion. The mischief arises from the change of diet, and, in the majority of cases, from the intemperance of the novices when set down in the midst of luxury. To a girl who has lived on potatoes and buttermilk, new white bread and fresh butter are an irresistible temptation. So is juicy fresh beef to one who has seen no meat but bacon. Fruit pies and sweet puddings are food of Paradise to one who comes from stir-about and rank cheese. This is no mere supposition. It is a very common thing for young servants to grow low-spirited after a few weeks in a first place—to feel a weight at the stomach, pains between the shoulders, cramp in the feet, nightmare, or stupid sleep, shortness of breathing during the day, and heavy head-aches in the morning. The yellow complexion and leaden eyes soon show what is the matter, and the doctor presently sets it right for the time. This is a temporary mischief, avoidable for the future by a little watchfulness on the part of the mistress and a good deal of self-denial on that of the maid. It is referred to here because it is the first ailment, and extremely common. That it is no trifle is