I am not speaking without due thought on the matter. Of course there are absolutely trustworthy registry offices, and some written characters may be genuine; but as a rule neither is to be trusted, and it is far better to do one’s household work oneself than to engage someone of whom we know no more than can be told us by an individual eager for the hiring fee, or from a bit of paper probably written on by the applicant herself. I actually know a case where the mistress had to go into the neighbouring town to search for a cook who had been missing for twenty-four hours, and who found her locked up in the police court for drunkenness and riotous behaviour, and who discharging her on the spot was surprised to find the woman a few weeks after in a friend’s house. The registry-office people had answered for her character; although the first mistress had taken the trouble to place the report of the case in the local papers in the registrar’s hands, and the cook was in possession, needless to remark that she broke out again and is no doubt carrying on her practices in another confiding mistress’s house at this very moment. A written character introduced a butler into a friend’s house, which he promptly burned to the ground in a fit of blind drunkenness, while another servant in another house was found in the act of carefully concealing a burglarious parent in a convenient cupboard; and indeed I do not think I am exaggerating when I say that every case of ‘bad servant’ that is brought under my notice originates in either of these two particulars, and that if due care, aye, and even what may appear as _undue_ care, is taken about the manner in which a servant is engaged we shall soon hear far fewer complaints than we do at present; while by raising the tone of our maids and ensuring that only really good-charactered servants will be employed, we shall get a better class of girl to take to service, and we shall thin the ranks of unemployed dressmakers, telegraph clerks, and shop-girls, and shall bring them back to the sheltered, safe, untempted lives that are the portions of all those who are in good places, under the care of conscientious and thoughtful mistresses.