good. It is a gratifying
proof of the rapid influence of civilisation that the daughter of a
farm-labourer, accustomed at home to consider bacon a treat and beef a
windfall, will, after a month's experience of her London place, decline
to eat cold meat of any kind, reject salt butter as 'not fit for a
Christian,' and become quite a _connoisseur_ as to the strength of
bitter ale. Indeed, two of our present female domestics are
'recommended' to drink claret because beer makes them bilious. I do not
mind giving them claret, but I think it hard that under such
circumstances I should have had a butler give me warning because the
female domestics are 'not select enough.' My own impression is, though
I scarcely like to mention it, because he was a married man, that he
considered them too plain.

The reasons, or at all events the professed reasons, which servants
give for leaving their situations are sometimes very curious. One man
left a family of my acquaintance because he said he was interfered with
by the young ladies. 'Good gracious, what do you mean?' inquired his
mistress. Her daughters, it appears, were accustomed to arrange the
flowers for the dinner-table, whereas, as he imagined, he had a
peculiar gift for that kind of decoration himself.

On the other hand, it is sometimes difficult for a sensitive master or
mistress to give the true reason for their parting with a servant. A
friend of mine had a footman who, through trick, or some defect in his
respiratory organs, used to blow like a grampus, and indeed more like a
whale, while waiting at table. It was not a vice, of course, but it was
very objectionable, and guests who were bald especially objected to it.
My friend consulted with his butler, who admitted that 'John did blow
like a pauper' (meaning, as I suppose, a porpoise), and undertook to
break the subject to him. It is quite common to find candidates for
service very deaf, and if they contrive to pass their 'entrance
examination' (for which no doubt they sharpen their faculties), they
stay with you for a month at least with an excellent excuse for making
it a holiday, since, whatever you tell them to do they cannot hear and
do not do it, or do something else which they like better. Mistresses
who are silent about moral disqualifications are much more so, of
course, about physical ones, and have no scruples in ridding themselves
of a deaf man.

The worst class of men-servants, perhaps, are those who are sai