How very much would it surprise the race of S.S.'s; what a look of offended virtue would they put on were somebody to exclaim to them, "It is such as you who help to fill our streets, and throng the saloons of our theatres; it is such as you who make the Magdalen indispensable." We have recently read the statistics of insanity, and have found governesses to be in a frightful disproportion to other educated classes. Can this be wondered at when we read such offers as those of S.S.? [Illustration: Thomas gives warning because his master has given up reading prayers, and he can't bemean himself by "sayin' 'Amen' to a governess."] The terms of £2 a month were, however, liberal compared with those offered by other employers. An assistant in a ladies' school was expected to teach English, French and music for £1 a quarter, while not at all infrequently the offer of board and lodging was regarded as an excuse for dispensing with a salary altogether. In dealing with the problem of these "Sisters of Misery," _Punch_ waxes ironical on the results of their improvidence:-- If in the course of ten years, with a salary of, let us say, twenty pounds a year, out of which she has only to buy clothes fit to keep company with the children, the governess has not saved a sufficiency for her declining age, it is but too painful to know that she must have been a very profuse, improvident person. And yet, I fear me, there are lamentable instances of such indiscretion. I myself, at this moment, know a spendthrift creature who, as I have heard, in her prime--that is, for the ten years--lived in one family. Two of her pupils are now countesses. Well, she had saved next to nothing, and when discharged she sank lower and lower as a daily governess, and at length absolutely taught French, Italian, and the harp to the daughters of small tradesmen at eighteenpence a lesson. In time she, of course, got too old for this. She now lives somewhere at Camberwell, and though sand-blind, keeps a sixpenny school for little boys and girls of the lower orders. With this, and the profits on her cakes, she continues to eke out a miserable existence--a sad example, if they would only be warned, to improvident governesses. [Sidenote: _A Real Dotheboys Hall_]