“Yes. I can easily imagine how hurtful in its effects such a policy would be, for instance, to a merchant, although it is pernicious in every case. But here is a merchant—he has regularly inducted a clerk in all the perplexities and mysteries of his business; the young man becomes acquainted with his private affairs, and by his acuteness and industry he relieves his employer of one half of his anxieties and cares. The time is coming when he might think it proper to raise the salary of the young man, but his neighbours envy the merchant’s prosperity, and they want to take advantage of the talent which has grown up under his vigilance and superintending care. ‘If he does so well for a man who gives him but five hundred dollars a year, he will do as well, or better, for ten.’ So they go underhandedly to work, and the young man gives the merchant notice that his neighbour has offered him a larger salary. The old Recorder is quite indignant at this mean and base mode of bettering the condition of one man or one institution at the expense of another. But was it the case also with house servants?—did the women of your day send a committee or write a letter to the servant of one of their friends, offering higher wages—for the cases are exactly similar; it is only talent of another form, but equally useful.” “Oh, no, indeed,” said Hastings—“then the sex showed their superior delicacy and refinement. It was thought most disgraceful and unladylike conduct to enveigle away the servant of a neighbour, or, in fact, of a stranger; I have heard it frequently canvassed. A servant, a clerk, a professor, or a clergyman, nine times out of ten, would be contented in his situation if offers of this kind were not forced upon him. A servant cannot feel an attachment to a mistress when she contemplates leaving her at the first offer; no tender feeling can subsist between them, and in the case of a clergyman, the consequence is very bad both to himself and his parish. In the good old times”—