een 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
that: "From this gaiety of dress must necessarily follow encrease of
wages, for where there is such an expence in habit there must be a
proportion'd supply of money, or it will not do." The same subject
furnished concern for people generally, and a correspondent to the
_Times_ wrote, in 1794: "I think it is the duty of every good master
and mistress to stop as much as possible the present ridiculous and
extravagant mode of dress in their domestics.... Formerly a plaited
cap and a white handkerchief served a young woman three or four
Sundays. Now a mistress is required to give up, by agreement, the
latter end of the week for her maids to prepare their caps, tuckers,
gowns, etc., for Sunday, and I am told there are houses open on
purpose where those servants who do not choose their mistresses shall
see them, carry the