Upper servants ask from £30 to £50 a year. In an ordinary middle-class house, where you have to be content with the general servant, that is to say the maid-of-all-work, who does none properly, and that you pay from £15 to £20 a year, the ladies of the house have to make the beds and cook the dinner. Her acquaintance with culinary art seems to be confined to the boiling of potatoes, and she appears to pass the greater part of her time in scrubbing the kitchen floor and cleaning the steps in front of the house. This latter operation is performed, kneeling, by means of a stone _ad hoc_, and damp cloths that are dipped in a pail of water and wrung out with the hands. Why this hard work is not done with a broom, which would save half the labour, and all the lumbago and diseases of the knees that are the consequences of it, I cannot imagine. There is no affection whatever between mistress and maid, not even the slightest attachment, and it is rare to see a servant longer than twelve months in the same house. According to the servant, one place is as good as another; according to the mistress there is not much to choose between the maids. For the slightest reason a change is made, "This won't suit me. Good-day, good-bye." When the servant is ill, she is promptly despatched to the hospital; when the mistress is ill, a sister, a friend, or a nurse is called in, so that between drawing-room and kitchen there exist none of those sentiments of gratitude which might hinder the growth of that great English virtue--independence of the heart. Of all the girls of the lower classes, servants are the most sought after for wives: and the reason is not far to seek. Generally smart-looking and well-dressed, with a little cap of lace and ribbon, that adds greatly to their comeliness, coquettishly stuck on the top of the head, and the bust generally well-developed by the exercise of the arms, these girls are much more attractive than the sluts of the English lower orders; but accustomed in service to spend their earnings upon unbecoming finery, and to waste coals they have not to pay for, they must make but very poor wives for artisans. As I said just now that the English servant is known by her feathers, I must explain that the little lace head-dress of which I have just spoken is only worn in the house. If a servant has to go out, were it but to cross the road, she takes off her cap and puts on her hat and plumes. * * * * *