r in a pitiful and oppressive dependence, she thought that many of
these women would be willing to enter domestic service under certain
conditions. She made inquiries; she was encouraged; and she set herself
to work to effect what promises to be a great and beneficent reform.
The conditions which she exacted for her _protegees_ were that they
should have comfortable and separate rooms, that they should be called
upon to do none of the rough work, like scrubbing, for example, or
boot-cleaning (although they were responsible for its being well done),
and that they should be treated with personal respect. They were to be
called "lady helps." She started her project only about two years ago;
and although it was met at first with incredulity and with ridicule,
already it is so successful that although the applicants for such
employment are many, she cannot supply the demand by housekeepers for
her helpful ladies. For it is found that these ladies give what is
wanted, intelligent, conscientious service. They are truthful; they can
be trusted; they learn easily; they work well; they are quiet, pleasant
in manner; and, strange to say, they are cheerful. To the last one
other of her conditions may contribute largely. They are to be hired
only in couples, so that they have companionship of their own sort.
What will be the end of all this who can tell? The prospect, however,
is cheering to that class of householders who have not large means and
who yet require faithful, well-trained, intelligent domestic servants
for their daily comfort, and no less to a large class of respectable
and educated women, who may find under the new domestic regime a refuge
from the woes of extremest poverty--poverty which presses the more
hardly upon them because they are educated and respectable. There is
nothing in itself degrading in the performance of domestic labor; quite
the contrary. No woman who is worthy of her sex hesitates to perform it
for her husband, her children, or herself, or feels in the least
degraded thereby, or is so regarded by her acquaintances. The feeling
against performing it for others is a mere prejudice born of custom, of
fashion. Let it once be understood that no woman loses the respect of
others or need diminish her own by doing it for others as a means of
livelihood, and the ranks of lady helps will be crowded.

--In illustration and in furtherance of Mrs. Crayshaw's truly, and, it
would seem, wisely benevolent scheme,