In earlier times domestic work fell largely to men. The kitchen work which now is performed by scullery maids was done by boys and youths; and before the office of housemaid had been established, that of chamberlain signified the service of men for the work which maids are now employed to do. The very titles of those who are connected with the person of majesty signify the lowly household functions which were ordinarily performed by those to whom now fall the honors, but none of the duties, of those offices. In ecclesiastical households there were no women employed at all in former times, excepting "brewsters." The personal relationship which used to endear the tie between servant and mistress no more exists than it does between other working people and their employers. Instead of the idea of personal attachment, the monetary consideration is the only one that enters into the relationship. The maid is but a part of the machinery of the household, and must deport herself in a deferential and often an abject manner, assuming a mask of propriety which is thrown off as soon as she is among her companions, when the pent-up animosity and resentment find expression. How different the modern condition from that which obtained in other times, when a lady considered no one fitting to attend upon her excepting those who were of gentle blood and between whom and herself were ties of endearment and a measure of equality! Gentle maidens performed many household duties which to-day are disdained by young ladies of lesser position. The real "servants" did only the coarse and rough work of the household. They had no particular place to sleep, and, even down to the time of Elizabeth, it was not thought important to provide regular beds for "menials" in the great houses--"As for servants, if they had any shete above them it was well, for seldom had they any under their bodies to keep them from the pricking strawes that ranne off thorow the canvas and raxed their hardened hides." The servants who were thus treated were, of course, the antecedents of the present-day servants. It is from the traditional attitude toward them that much of the present-day spirit of superiority toward domestics is derived. During the eighteenth century the condition of domestics improved, and, during the last quarter, the description of them, their tastes and their manners, is such as would be quite applicable to-day. Already the scarcity of good servants had come to be a matter of domestic concern. The lament of the lady of to-day, that her maid dresses as well as she herself, is not a new one, for it is met as far back as the seventeenth century, and in the eighteenth century Defoe remarks upon the same fact. He says, writing in 1724: "It would be a satire upon the ladies such as perhaps they would not bear the reading of, should we go about to tell how hard it is sometimes to know the chamber-maid from her mistress; or my lady's chief woman from one of my lady's daughters." He adds