too much to say that wages
are often a secondary object as compared with the opportunity of making
a purse for themselves; and the recognised privilege of selling the
dripping affords cover for a multitude of petty delinquencies which if
not positive thefts have a strong family resemblance to them.

Before leaving the subject of short terms of service, it should be
noted that the modern servant openly avows her love of change. An
excellent mistress, and a very kind one, has told me that housemaids
and kitchenmaids have given her warning again and again for no other
cause than this. They have avowed themselves quite happy and contented
in their place, but they want 'fresh woods and pastures new.' When Jack
Mytton was reminded by his lawyer that a certain estate he was about to
sell had been in his family for 500 years, he replied, 'Then it's high
time it should go out of it;' and the same reflection occurs to our
Janes and Bessies. They have been in their present situation a year
perhaps, or two at most--indeed, two years is considered in the world
below stairs the extreme point for any person of spirit to remain under
one roof--and it is high time they should leave it. One would naturally
think that, in the case of young women at all events, they would be
slow to exchange even a moderately comfortable place for a home among
strangers; that they would bear the ills they know of, even if ills
exist, rather than venture on those of which they know nothing; but
this is far from being the case. Nor do they even quit their place in
order 'to better themselves.' They have absolutely no reason except the
love of change. Behaviour of this sort naturally gives some colour to
the remark already quoted that servants are not 'reasonable beings.' I
was almost a convert to that opinion myself when, on one occasion,
having asked a female domestic to be good enough to put my boots on the
tree, she literally obeyed my order. She hung all my boots on the tree
in the garden, and it was very wet weather. But to young persons who
come from the country everything is pardonable--except 'temper.'

The growth of this parasite in both town and country is, however, quite
alarming. Little as mistresses dare to say to the disadvantage of
servants when leaving their employment, no matter for what reason, they
do sometimes remark of them that their temper is 'uncertain.' When this
happens and the fact is communicated to Jane or Betsy by the lady to