[279] An employer writes: “I recently advertised for a young woman to help me with the children, and be received as one of the family. The forty answers received formed the most pathetic reading I have ever seen. My selection was the daughter of a poor clergyman, and this was the class from which the majority of the answers came. All desired domestic service if unaccompanied with social degradation.” How conscious many are of this inferior position is seen from a single illustration. An employer recently invited her housemaid to take a boat-ride with her. The maid replied, “I should love to go if you wouldn’t be ashamed to be seen with me.” [280] This is especially true in the matter of wages where wages and annual earnings are confused, the element of time lost never being considered. The fact is also often overlooked that when a young woman lives at home without paying her board, her family in effect pay a part of her wages and thus enable the employer to pay her low wages, though nominally more than paid in housework. Thus one employee writes: “If girls have homes where their board is given them, they can earn more money on other kinds of work than in housework.” [281] Domestic service, as seen by the employee, cannot be dismissed without suggesting the fact that as many tragedies in life are found here as elsewhere. One employee had planned to be a teacher, but sudden deafness prevented, and domestic service was all she could do. Another hoped to become a physician, but loss of property prevented her from completing her education. A similar reason prevented another from becoming a trained nurse. One had hoped to be a dressmaker, but it became necessary to earn money at once without serving an apprenticeship. Could the struggles and disappointments in thousands of such lives be known, the household employee would cease to be the butt of jest and ridicule that she sometimes is. [282] An employer in South Carolina writes: “The difficulty here can only be removed by the importation of competent servants.” [283] The following table will indicate the preference: =================+==========+============+============+========== CITY OR STATE | NUMBER | NO | WHITE HELP | NEGROES | EXAMINED | PREFERENCE | PREFERRED | PREFERRED -----------------+----------+------------+------------+---------- Charleston | 259 | 143 | 65 | 51 Louisville | 200 | 104 | 80 | 16 New Orleans | 145 | 103 | 35 | 7 Savannah | 106 | 66 | 26 | 14 Texas | 67 | 31 | 35 | 1 Washington, D.C. | 135 | 61 | 54 | 20 +----------+------------+------------+---------- Total | 912 | 508 | 295 | 109 =================+==========+============+============+==========