Mr. R discharges his housekeeper “for infirmity of temper,” as
he subsequently testifies in court, but gives her so excellent a
recommendation that she believes she has been discharged for physical
disability, and gives her testimony to this effect in the same lawsuit.
Mrs. S has a cook who drinks to excess one fourth of the time, but the
latter has no fear of dismissal because three fourths of the time she
cooks in a superior manner.
Mrs. T dislikes manual labor of every kind. Her servants therefore know
that she will tolerate inefficient and incompetent service rather than be
left for a single day without help.
Mr. U, the father of three young sons, has a coachman who swears like a
trooper, but he retains him because Mrs. U considers him the most stylish
coachman in the city.
Mrs. V applies to an employment bureau for a domestic and refuses six
applicants because they are not “pretty” and “refined.” After finding one
whose appearances are satisfactory, she parts with her because she is
unwilling to black the gentlemen’s boots.
Mrs. W engages a woman to go out of town for service, the latter to wait
a week before going and meantime to pay her own board. At the time agreed
upon she reaches the employer’s house, to learn that the former “help”
has decided to remain. She has thus lost a week’s board and wages and
more than two dollars in going and returning to the city, and all of “her
set” refuse to make engagements in the country.
The different economic, social, and moral questions connected with these
various conditions, the illustrations of which could be multiplied
indefinitely, may be, generally are, decided by each individual without
reference to society at large. Wages are too often regulated by the
employer’s bank account, hours of service by his caprice, and moral
questions by his personal convenience. The employer is too often the
autocrat in his own home. He considers that neither his neighbor nor the
general public has any more concern in the business relations existing
between himself and his domestic employees than it has in the price he
pays for a dinner service or in the color and cut of his coat.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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