together with those of tortoises, and also of marine animals, when these sands were at the bottom of the sea.
In the Red Sandstone of the valley of the Connecticut, there are the footprints of a bird whose size would be equal to that of the largest horse, standing from eleven to twelve feet high; it belonged to the order of the Cranes and Herons, and it is somewhat remarkable that we find no trace of its bones in a fossil state, nothing remaining but the footprints on the sand. These, however, afford sufficient data for us to calculate their size, their order, their habits, and even the food they required, and though the very species has vanished from creation, we can study the zoology of these ancient formations with as much accuracy, and classify the races that tenanted their shores with as much precision, as if we had the organisms before us, although nothing indeed remains to us but footprints on the sand.
THE DOMESTIC SERVICE QUESTION.
We have our choice at this season of a wide range of theories for discussion, and of complaints of social evils to sympathise with and consult over. Men’s wits are exhilarated by foreign travel, or any other form that their autumnal holiday may take; and they at once see things more plainly than usual, feel them more strongly, and have a more urgent desire to say what they think and feel. So we have every year renewed complaints of old grievances, or striking representations of new ones, presented to us in all newspapers, from the 12th of August till London fills again in November. Sometimes it is hotel bills, at home or abroad, that we are called upon to be shocked at; sometimes it is dull divines; sometimes the increase of celibacy in the higher classes; sometimes the poverty of curates; the rise in house-rent; the shutting up of Scotch domains from tourists; the adulteration of food; the dreariness of sermons, or a dozen things besides. The most inexhaustible and irrepressible of topics, however, is perhaps that of the nuisance of Domestic Servants: and this year we have heard more than usual of it—for some sufficient reason, no doubt.
The topic seems to have been always an old one. Within the historic period we find traces of it wherever the ways of social life are touched upon. All generations of servants are prevented from forgetting that there are Scripture texts against them. There was “eye-service,” there were “men-pleasers,” in St. Paul’s day; and it is probable that householders then believed, as ever since, that there was a time when servants were what they ought to be. I have seen a grumbling mistress of a family, who was wont to insist that “the former days were better than these,” excessively surprised to find so old-fashioned a personage as Shakspere expressing the very same notion that she had supposed to belong to our day.
O, good old man! how well in thee appears
The constant service of the antique world,
When service wrought for duty, not for meed!
Thou art not for the fashion of these times.
Thou art not fo“As You Like It,” act ii. scene 3.
The question is whether future generations of housekeepers will be making the same moan, or whether there is any prospect of relief. It is a question which has occupied me, for one, at many intervals in my long life; and it occupies me and many others now as much as if we had never thought it over before. The reason of this, and of the lively re-agitation of the question, is that a change in the conditions of domestic service really is taking place. It must be met with good sense, or it will have to be endured as a great domestic misfortune. The fact is, the wages of domestic servants, as of all working people, are rising, and housekeepers must pay high for service which they declare to be continually less worth having. At the same time they cannot do without servants; and, unless they give their minds to the case, so as to manage it wisely, there is nothing before them but a life of petty warfare at home, long years spent in scolding, or being scolded, and the certainty all through that all points in dispute will have to be yielded by the employer. There is no chance of peace and comfort between parlour and kitchen but in the employers settling with themselves what points they will hold to and what they will yield; or, to put the case more pleasantly, what compact should be made between employers and servants on the footing of both doing as they would be done by.
I certainly have nowhere found a more hopeless haziness of ideas than on this whole subject. Gentlemen usually want that their servants should do exactly as they are bid—only without giving the trouble of bidding them; and ladies want that their maids in all capacities should be perfect, and in the precise way of perfection which suits each lady’s taste. As for servants, one is afraid to inquire what they expect, seeing how little we are able to enter into such a position as theirs, or to estimate the amount of disappointment they must have suffered in their vocation, from their own fault or other people’s. We may obtain some notion of their views by considering for a moment who they are, and where they come from.
In London newspapers the airs and the faults of butlers and footmen are prominently treated of; but, taking in the whole country, the preponderance of female servants is so great that the men sink almost out of sight. Only the wealthier and smaller classes of housekeepers employ men-servants; and the outcry against servants comes just as much from the middle ranks as the upper; so we must turn to the larger class to understand the case.
The maid-servants of England and Wales exceed half a million in number. Of these nearly two-thirds have been born in some rural district, and most of them in the cottage of a day-labourer or journeyman artisan. When mistresses expect perfection of their servants, do they represent to themselves how they have been brought up? Were those ladies themselves ever inside a labourer’s cottage? Did they ever see how the little girls get breakfast and dinner ready—how they eat their meals—how they nurse the baby—how they walk and dress themselves, and set about mending their clothes? If not, they can have no notion how much the future housemaid,