elf. A woman who is at the head of a home has
many opportunities of coming into close contact with her employees; she
can easily ascertain their wishes in this respect and act accordingly.
It is more the fact of being entitled to a holiday than to have it on
a certain day that ought to be emphasized.

Domestic employees would be benefited by having these extra days of
liberty, just as much as all other employees. A trial is all that is
necessary to show how much better a household employee will work after
having a holiday. She returns to her duties with renewed strength
and the knowledge that she is no longer forced to play the role of
Cinderella gives her a fresh interest in life. Unfortunately the
housewife has been accustomed for so many years to have her "servants"
work for her all day long on every day of the week, with only a few
hours off duty "on every other Sunday and on every other Thursday," that
she is rather inclined to resent such an innovation as the observance
of legal holidays in domestic labor. She fails to perceive that by her
present attitude she shows herself in a very unfavorable light as an
employer, for the lack of holidays is decidedly one of the reasons for
which housework is shunned to-day.

Business men have evolved a satisfactory and workable plan by which
their employees are neither overworked nor deprived of all legal
holidays, although frequently the work they are engaged in can not be
suspended day or night even for an hour.

It remains for women of the leisure class, and to this class belong all
those who can afford to pay to have their housework done for them, to
adopt a similar plan in their homes.

EXTRA PAY FOR OVERTIME

When the plan for limiting housework to eight hours a day is discussed
for the first time, the following question invariably arises: What is
to be done when anything unusual happens to break the routine of the
regular work, as for instance, when sickness occurs, when friends arrive
unexpectedly, when a dinner party is given?

Sickness, of course, is unavoidable, but as a rule a trained nurse or
an extra household assistant is called in to help. Many times, however,
this is not absolutely necessary, or perhaps the family can not afford
to have outside help, and the extra work caused by sickness usually
falls upon the domestic employee whose hours of labor are more or less
prolonged in consequence. What ought to be done in such an event?

There is but one an