:

were better treated there than in the workhouse.

the children, but without effect. These poor girls | verently, for there is that in every human had been nurtured and imbued with an impres- being which deserves to be and must be resion, in the first place, that the workhouse was verenced, if we wish to understand it,) learn their natural home, then that they were so lost and bad that there was no one to sympathize time they will have learnt to understand to understand their troubles, and by that with them. They committed wrongs and were punished that hardened them, and they did your remedies, and they will appreciate worse, and were punished more, and the work them." Such service, indeed, is hopeless house, under the punishment, became so irksome and profitless as regards its results, if it to them, that they committed further crime in does not proceed lovingly and sympathiz order to become the inmates of a prison; and ingly, looking not so much at the apparent they preferred the prison because, they said, they evil-the polluted stream-as at the hidden Now and then, therefore, there were these out- cause, the source and origin of the pollution; breaks-these epidemics of bad behaviour. He and with a humble acknowledgment that we recollected some years ago a number of dark ourselves, so neglected and abandoned, so boxes being erected round a ward, with a little exposed to corrupting influences, could grating in them, just like a small padded room at hardly have been better than these castaa lunatic asylum without the pads, and on his ways, and might have been worse. inquiring what they were for, he was told that they were cells to confine refractory girls in. He of this applies, mutatis mutandis, to the It need scarcely be said that very much discovered that this sort of punishment only made the girls worse, and their conduct was so bad, visitation of hospitals, penitentiaries, lunatic anything like reformation in them appeared to be asylums, and other similar institutions. hopeless. He (Mr. Bell) thought, however, he But there are difficulties peculiar to each would make a trial of a different sort, as even and all of these which belong, in a very the clergyman had given these girls up. At his limited degree, if at all, to our parish workrequest, some ladies who were in the habit of houses. In any case, perhaps, the lady visvisiting prisons visited these girls, and talked to itor must have her feelings more or less them, and gave them books, and endeavoured to impress upon their minds that their cases were shocked," as it is conventionally called, not so hopeless as they themselves felt that they by the sights and sounds which will greet were that there were people who sympathized her. We assume, indeed, that every woman with them, and that if they would endeavour to who thinks of devoting herself to the minisbehave well there should be some locus penitentiæ tration of the sick and the sorrow-laden, is for them. In the course of two months there prepared to be "shocked." Nevertheless. was a great improvement amongst the girls. it were well that all men and women alike The majority of them got situations, and although should gradually habituate themselves to he (Mr. Bell) was free to confess that some relapsed into their former ways, a great many of such sights and sounds-that they should them, by kind treatment, reformed, and had be- serve as it were an apprenticeship of enducome decent members of society." rance, trying their strength as they advance. lest they should find the sudden encounter too painful for them. In this respect, the workhouse, the sights and sounds of which are commonly less painful and revolting than those which greet us in hospitals, luna

66

initiate our English ladies into the distressing scenes with which they must necessarily become familiar. Moreover, the workhouse is common both to our large towns and our rural districts; and there are very few English families to whom it is not accessible.

What we have Mr. Bell's assurance has been done so advantageously by some ladies, may be done by others with equal success. This is one of many practical suggestions for turning to good account the benevolent tic asylums, or penitentiaries, may fittingly energies of our English ladies. The suggestion derives additional force from the recent unhappy revelations to which we have adverted. But it is only one of many channels through which the stream of benevolence may flow. "What we have to do," says the Rev. Charles Kingsley, in his admirable lecture on the Country Parish,' It may also be observed, that in the case "is to ennoble and purify the womanhood of of this workhouse visitation, the "Commuthese poor women; to make them better nion of Labour," of which Mrs. Jameson daughters, sisters, wives, and mothers," or, ap- writes so emphatically, is easier of attainplying the truth especially to these poor work- ment, and ought to be more complete when house girls, we might, perhaps, more fitly say, attained, by reason of the local character of "make them capable of fulfilling the duties these institutions. Many ladies, who would of these relationships at all." "Approach willingly minister to the wants of the inthese poor women as sisters. Do not ap- mates of our poorhouses, are the daughters, ply remedies which they do not understand sisters, wives, or mothers, of men in some to diseases which you do not understand. way officially connected with the affairs of Learn lovingly and patiently, (ay, and re- the parish-of poor-law guardians, or paro

1857.

The Employment of Women.

chial surgeons, or union chaplains-and, as our appearance, we have been known and such, therefore, would have a recognised po- spoken of by our proper names, and have In this respect become as much a recognised part of the sition in the workhouse. the dweller in the country has an advantage rural population as the village parson or In great village surgeon himself. The Londoner, on over the dweller in the town. cities there is such isolation. No one seems passing into the country, feels a not unnathere to have any recognised position. In tural surprise that poor people touch their his very excellent lecture "on Dispensaries hats to him, though perhaps they have never and allied Institutions," Dr. Skirving says, seen him before. A change, the very rethat he has been "daily reminded of the verse of this, astonishes the resident in a isolation which can only exist in a town like rural district who takes up his abode in the London, and daily had occasion to deplore metropolis. He feels at once that he is abthe absence of co-operation between those sorbed. He is merely an atom of an imwho, having a great interest in the poorer mense floating population. No one recogclasses, failed to do the good they were each nises his existence; and the chances are, essaying to do, simply because they knew that if he were to go into a poor man's "The isolation to house on a mission of charitable inquiry, he nothing of each other." which I allude," continues the benevolent would be either cheated or insulted. We physician, "is probably greater in London have used the masculine pronoun; but what than anywhere else in the world. . . . It we have written is especially applicable to exists more or less throughout our country; ladies who find themselves stranded and but the larger the population of a district, helpless in large cities, their energies all running to waste. Independent action, in the more complete will it necessarily be." "communion of labour." Of this, every one who, after residing for such cases, can seldom accomplish much. some years in the country, has taken up his There must be a residence in a metropolitan street or square, In rural districts women may work alone; must have become painfully conscious. in towns they must co-operate with men. Not that he misses what in the rural dis- They must turn to existing institutions and In find there meet employment for their wotricts is called a "neighbourhood." London almost every one has "neighbours," manly sympathies and activities. There is though they may come from the opposite no lack of institutions, the doors of which end of the town-neighbours who are ready will be thrown wide open to our English to pay morning visits, and to send or accept ladies as soon as they knock at them. invitations to dinner. But we have no sooner accomplished the change of which we speak, than we become peculiarly alive to the fact that we have no poor neighbours. We may look out from our windows upon "pestilent lines of narrow streets lanes and hungry alleys," with a full and appreciative sense of the fact, that they are teeming and reeking with a pauper population; but we can with difficulty bring ourselves to believe that they in any way belong to us. We have no particular interest in them-we have no feeling of our obligations to them. They do not know us, and we do not know them. We may feel a strong desire to identify ourselves in some way with them. But we do not know how to begin. We are sorely puzzled. The labour appears so vast and bewildering, and we ourselves so little and insignificant. We are absolutely appalled by the feeling, that although we have come into the neighbourhood to reside for years, and to spend our hundreds or thousands every year among besides to teach them various trades. There was the surrounding population, the poor in the next street, within a stone-throw of our tailor, a carpenter, a shoemaker, a hairdresser door, do not trouble themselves even to a plumber, who, at wages from 25s. to 35s. a learn our names. It is so different in the week, were employed to instruct the boys in their country, where from the very first hour of various trades. The girls were taught reading,

- upon

We are not yet prepared to say that the workhouse is one of them. There may be Doubtless, there are some prejudice and exclusiveness to contend against at the outset. vested interests in misrule, any interference with which will be proclaimed unpardona ble heresy. But they cannot last long. The good sense and good feeling of the many must prevail over the selfishness and intolerance of the few. We are becoming every day more and more alive to the fact, that what is called "efficient control," is, for the most part, very inefficient in respect of the practical development of the workhouse system, as every humane person would desire to see it developed. We need but to turn to Mrs. Jameson's little volume for an illustration of this:

"Now I will tell you (writes this excellent lady), as an illustration, what I have seen only very lately. I was in a very large parish union, where there were about four hundred children, nearly an equal number of boys and girls, and schools for both. The boys had an excellent master for reading and writing, and had masters

writing, and sewing; some of them, under the them supplied with honest bread. They pauper menials, helped to scour and scrub. The are taught only to feel their degraded posiover-tasked, anxious mistress seemed to do her tion, and that they are to be got rid of as best, but there was not sufficient assistance. soon as they can be turned adrift. And they and could not by any possibility turn out efficient are turned adrift; to sink or to swim-of domestic servants, or well-disciplined, religious- course the former. The wonder is not that minded, cheerful-tempered girls. I was informed 50 per cent. sink into irretrievable ruin, but that, of the boys sent out of this workhouse, about 2 per cent. returned to the parish in want or unserviceable; while of the girls they reckoned that 50 per cent. were returned to them ruined and depraved."

Her first thought, then, will be how to train all these poor girls to become, in proper time and proper place, useful to themselves and others to teach them not only child in the way he should go," is a divine to appreciate the dignity of labour, but precept and a divine caution, which has more how to labour diligently and profitably. than a mere religious signification. But we Boys are taught to become shoemakers, or train girls only to be useless. We bring carpenters, or masons, or plumbers, but them up with the assumption that they may girls are taught little, and that little imper- marry; and that then there will be an end fectly. It is not impressed upon them that of them. They will be absorbed into the what they learn is to afford them, in after man, and become "non-existent." days, the means of subsistence-to keep

This is the great cardinal error of our system. High and low, it is all the same. Instead of educating every girl as though * And depraved workhouse girls are said by com- she were born to be an independent, self-suppetent authority to be the most depraved of their Colonel Chesterton, in a passage quoted by porting member of society, we educate her Mrs. Jameson, says, that he witnessed "in the de- to become a mere dependent, a hanger-on, meanour of young girls from twenty years and up- or as the law delicately phrases it, a chattel. wards, such revolting specimens of workhouse edu- In some respects, indeed, we err more barcation, that the exhibition was at once frightful and disgusting. The inconceivable wickedness of these barously than those nations among whom girls was absolutely appalling." a plurality of wives is permitted, and who

1857.

The Employment of Women.

regard women purely as so much live stock; | cast adrift is, too often, only to fall by the
for among such people women are, at all wayside. And so the most useful class of
events, provided with shelter, with food, and people in the world contributes largely to
clothing-they are "cared for" as cattle are. swell the number of the most dangerous of
There is a completeness in such a system. the "dangerous classes ;" and retaliates upon
But among ourselves, we treat women as society for its neglect.
cattle, without providing for them as cattle.
We take the worst part of barbarism and
the worst part of civilisation, and work them
into a heterogeneous whole. We bring up
our women to be dependent, and then leave
them without any one to depend on. There
is no one-there is nothing for them to lean
upon; and they fall to the ground.

It will be said, perhaps, by some benevolent people, that a good mistress will always endeavour to instruct her servants; and that no servant can suit you so well as one whom you have yourself drilled into the ways of your house. The latter part of the proposition is generally true, but the former must be accepted only in a very limited sense. Now, what every woman, no less than Some mistresses may have time, ability, and every man, should have to depend upon, is inclination to train their servants-and they an ability, after some fashion or other, to have their reward for doing so; but the turn labour into money. She may or may greater number have not time or ability, if not be compelled to exercise it, but every they have the inclination; and there is really one ought to possess it. If she belong to no more reason why a mistress should be the richer classes, she may have to exercise bound to instruct her servant how to cook a if to the poorer, she assuredly will. It joint or lay a fire, than to instruct her milliis of the poorer classes that we are now ner or her dressmaker how to make her speaking. Under ordinary circumstances, bonnets or her gowns. In large establishexcept in the large manufacturing towns, ments a raw underling, acting according to where there is an unhealthy demand for hu- the instructions, and following the example man hands to assist the Briarean machinery, of a well-trained upper-servant, will soon every girl, who knows that she must earn come to know her duties, and will rise, in her own livelihood, turns her thoughts, in the time, to a higher place. But these large first instance, towards domestic services. establishments are comparatively few; and And it is a fact, as little thought of as it is thousands of girls, every year, simply for undeniable when thought of, that the female want of previous training, are compelled to servants of England are the most useful class commence a career of service in places of of people in the country. Imagine the state an inferior description, where only bad into which society would be thrown if they habits are to be formed, and where, perhaps, were suddenly to suspend their functions. temptation and corruption surround them. And yet there is one almost universal com- Having no skilled labour to carry into the plaint that their appointed duties are ineffi- market, they are obliged to accept the smallciently and unsatisfactorily discharged; that, est possible price for their work. They behowever indispensable to our comfort they come the household drudges of people may be however impossible it may be to do scarcely higher in the social, and lower in without them-they are practically "the the moral scale, than themselves. And thus greatest plague of life." Accepting this only many a respectable girl is spoiled in her in a qualified degree, and fully admitting that teens, and all hope of promotion taken from bad masters, or rather bad mistresses, make her by an unfortunate beginning.* bad servants; we must still fall back on the *Since this page was written, we have alighted inevitable conclusion, that, in respect to our female servants, there is a lamentable want upon a passage in a recent work by Mrs. Ellis, so training. Every girl thinks that she is qua- much to the point, that we must give it insertion:lified for domestic service without any sort "This business of seeking honest service becomes a judicious families there are who will receive the litof special education. The consequence of very sad one, when we reflect how few kind and this assumption is that she commonly fails. tle untaught servant within their doors. Some misShe goes from place to place; makes for tresses have no time to teach such troublesome inherself no standing anywhere; never im- mates themselves; some have no patience; others proves, but remains as ignorant and awk- no skill; all dislike the idea of taking a raw child hands, when wanting help from hers. No; she ward in her last place as in her first. Nor from a low home, to receive advantages from their is the evil limited to this. These frequent must come to them better prepared; she must have transitions are attended with no little danger. learned to perform the various duties of a servant home, day after day, with her disappointed mother, Servant-girls out of place have not always before they can receive her. So the poor child goes homes to which to betake themselves for until at last, as the other children of the family grow protection against the snares of world and up, and food becomes more scarce, she is absolutely the assaults of the wicked; and thus to be obliged to try anything-the lowest situation-rather

We know that there must be maids-of-all- | a girl takes a situation entailing multifarious work, as there must be female servants of duties upon her, not because she is compeother grades; and surely there can be no more tent to discharge them all, but because she useful domestics than those who combine, is competent to discharge none. She bein their own persons, the several offices of comes cook, parlour-maid, house-maid, all cook, house-maid, table-attendant, and, per- in one, because she is neither a cook, a parhaps, nurse. But, as though it were a rule in lour-maid, nor a house-maid. Being none domestic service that the wages should be in of these, she becomes all-in other words, inverse proportion to the presumed acquire-a drudge; and is paid in proportion, not to ments of the servant, there is not one who the actual extent of her work, but the actual is so badly paid. Of all female servants extent of her competency. It is the knowthe maid-of-all-work has the most ill-requit- ledge that she is incompetent that drives her ed, and the most precarious position. In to take laborious and ill-paid service of this London, and, indeed, in every large town, kind. So long as there are thousands of inthere are whole streets in which the houses competent young women seeking service, are attended by a single servant. It may such service will be obtainable at a low rate be accepted as a general rule that there are of wages. But, if girls were trained for no householders so inconsiderate and exact- domestic service, as boys are trained to being as those who keep only one servant. come carpenters or shoemakers, they would They expect to get a combination of Her- carry not the raw material of work, but cules and the Admirable Crichton for eight skilled labour into the market, and be able pounds a-year. Many "take in lodgers" to demand a higher price for their services. expect one unfortunate girl to do the work A young woman, competent to discharge the of two or three establishments, and are duties of cook, house-maid, and parlourangry if Susan is not attending on all at the maid, and actually performing them all, same time. As a necessary consequence of this exaction, there are "a few words,"and Susan gives or takes a month's warning. There may be cases of respectable old maids, or "widows indeed," in reduced circumstances, who keep a maid-of-all-work for years, regarding her as a companion and a friend; but the greater number of this class of servants do not keep their places for six months. They are continually in a transition-state, from one street to another, from town to country, or from country to town; often falling by the wayside, and ceasing to belong to the useful classes for the rest of their lives. They are ripe for any change, for they think that nothing can be worse than a life of such continued toil and unrequited service. .

Now all this is an admitted evil-an evil to be deplored, but seemingly not to be remedied. It may be said, that, in such a case, all the training in the world will not make the position of the maid-of-all-work other than one of extreme hardship. If she can cook well, wait at table well, and clean a house well, it may be said that these things will be required of her all the more for her competency to perform them. But the fact is, that in the market of domestic service, skilled labour will fetch its price; and that

would not be compelled to take eight pounds a year, whilst her sister, who is performing only one of these offices, is receiving sixteen.

It may be said, that, even in the case of skilled labour, if the supply were greater than the demand, the price of wages must fall, and thousands must be compelled to take service of an inferior kind or starve. But would the supply be greater than the demand? At present it is; because so large a number of girls turn to domestic service as a means of earning a livelihood, for the . very reason that it is thought to require no previous training. If the general standard of domestic service were raised, and more extended means of employment in other directions were found, this would not be the case. But even if it were, there would still be this result,-that our female servants would not, as now, be continually changing their places. Though idleness, dishonesty, infirmity of temper, &c., may sometimes necessitate these changes, incompetency is by far the most frequent cause of dismissal. Much is forgiven to a really efficient servant; and no reasonable master or mistress expects perfection in a housemaid or a cook.

To the householder, these frequent changes are inconvenient; but to the servant, we repeat, that they are fatal. One of the cry

than starve at home; and there are always low situations enough in which such girls can be received-ing evils of domestic service is, that it selperhaps to fight their way amongst rude men; per- dom affords any provision for sickness or haps to be stormed at by coarse masters, and chidden by mistresses, no better governed than themadvanced age; and that, therefore, our hosselves."--[Education of Character, with Hints on pitals and workhouses are full of domestic Moral Training.] servants. If a woman spend one or two