ed, and in them the servant is confirmed in her belief
that the employing class is a class of cruel oppressors. The interest of
the _employer_ seems to be held by the managers of most of these
institutions as absolutely of no account. The following conversation,
which actually took place in one of these offices, between its
proprietor and an applicant for a domestic, will illustrate, better than
a lengthy disquisition could do, the system upon which too many of these
employment agencies are conducted:

LADY. I want a girl for general housework.

PROPRIETOR. Well, I can suit you, if you _can_ be suited. Here's a girl,
now, just out of a place, and I can recommend her (beckoning to one of
the fifty girls who are seated in full hearing of all that passes).

LADY (after a few questions addressed to the girl, who, of course, can
cook, and bake, and wash and iron, and is extravagantly fond of
'childer,' etc., etc.). Well, there is one thing I am very particular
about. I want a girl who is _honest_. The last girl I had from you I had
to discharge for making too free with my stores for the benefit of her
own family relations.

PROPRIETOR (with an insolent sneer). Honest! humph! that depends upon
what you _call_ honest. _Some_ people call a girl a thief if she takes a
bit of cake from the pantry without saying, 'By your leave.' (Chorus of
giggles and approbatory nods from the sympathizing audience of fifty.)

The crude notions of the respective rights of _meum_ and _tuum_
furnished the 'help' graduated by such an institution, may be imagined.

Some pains are occasionally taken to provide a regular customer, whose
patronage it is desirable to retain, with a good servant, but generally
all is fish that comes to their net. The business is now in such ill
odor that intelligence-office servants are proverbial for worthlessness
and all the worst qualities of the class. I have known a thief, a
drunkard, and a vixen to be sent from one of these offices in
succession, the victimized housekeeper finally begging that no more be
sent, preferring to let the retaining fee go, than to be pestered any
further. It is well known that the more decent and self-respecting of
the class of domestics rarely, now, enter their names upon the books of
intelligence offices. Indeed, such seldom have occasion to seek places;
if they do, they usually prefer to advertise.

In this employment-agency business a radical reform is needed. A
respectable and