Mrs. L “makes herself generally useful” at the rate of ten cents an hour
if regularly employed and twenty cents when serving occasionally.
Mrs. M goes out as a waitress at lunches and dinners.
Mrs. N employs a young man working his way through school to keep
wood-boxes and coal-hods filled.
Many college students in cities partially pay their expenses by table
service.
Hotels and restaurants frequently send out waiters on special occasions.
One employer writes, “I think a central office in this city at which
competent waitresses could be hired by the hour would be largely
patronized.”
The Syracuse, New York, Household Economic Club publishes a _Household
Register_, giving the names and addresses of all persons in the city who
do by the piece, hour, or day all forms of household work. Thirty-five
different classes of work are enumerated.
[309] See also article on the “Revival of Hand Spinning and Weaving in
Westmoreland,” by Albert Fleming, _Century Magazine_, February, 1889.
[310] One writes, “I find it much better to employ one servant and to
hire work by the piece, and to purchase from the Exchange, rather than to
employ an extra servant.”
Another housekeeper writes: “I began housekeeping twelve years ago with
three servants and had more than enough work for all. I now have two
and have not enough work for them, although my family is larger than at
first. The change has come from putting work out of the house and hiring
much done by the piece.”
A business man writes: “Our family is happier than it ever dared hope
to be under the sway of Green Erin. We purchase all baked articles and
all cooked meats as far as possible. A caterer is employed on special
occasions, and work that cannot be done by the parents, three children,
and two aunts, who compose the family, is hired by the hour. Since we
signed our Declaration of Independence in 1886, peace has reigned.”
Still another says: “I used to employ a laundress in the house at $4
per week and board. I was also at expense in furnishing soap, starch,
bluing, and paid a large additional water tax. Now my laundress lives at
home, and does my laundry there for $4 per week, and we are both better
satisfied.”
Several small families who do “light housekeeping,” have found that they
have in this way been able to live near the business of the men of the
family, and thus have kept the family united and intact, as they could
not have done had it been necessary to employ servants.
One employee writes, “If more housework were done by the day so that more
women could be with their families in the evening, I think it would help
matters.”
[311] _Seventeenth Annual Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of
Statistics of Labor_, p. 157.
[312] _Profit Sharing between Employer and Employee_, p. 8.
[313] _Methods of Industrial Remuneration_, p. 158.
[314] Schloss, _Methods of Industrial Remuneration_, p. 173.
[315] Gilman, _Profit Sharing_, p. 189.
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