-and-So's" are "paid off at last," as
soon as the door is closed behind them, must needs give a curious bent to
a servant's mind. They see their employers insincere, and copy them.
Many a mistress who has been smilingly assured by her maid how much her
dress becomes her, and how young she is looking, would be thunderstruck
to hear herself laughed at and criticised (none too delicately) five
minutes later in that servant's talk.

Servants are trained from their youth up to conceal their true feelings.
A domestic who said what she thought would quickly lose her place.
Frankly, is it not asking a good deal to expect a maid to be very fond of
a lady who makes her sit up night after night until the small hours to
unlace her bodice or take down her hair; or imagine a valet can be
devoted to a master he has to get into bed as best he can because he is
too tipsy to get there unaided? Immortal "Figaro" is the type! Supple,
liar, corrupt, intelligent,--he aids his master and laughs at him,
feathering his own nest the while. There is a saying that "horses
corrupt whoever lives with them." It would be more correct to say that
domestic service demoralizes alike both master and man.

Already we are obliged to depend on immigration for our servants because
an American revolts from the false position, though he willingly accepts
longer hours or harder work where he has no one around him but his
equals. It is the old story of the free, hungry wolf, and the well-fed,
but chained, house-dog. The foreigners that immigration now brings us,
from countries where great class distinctions exist, find it natural to
"serve." With the increase in education and consequent self-respect, the
difficulty of getting efficient and contented servants will increase with
us. It has already become a great social problem in England. The
trouble lies beneath the surface. If a superior class accept service at
all, it is with the intention of quickly getting money enough to do
something better. With them service is merely the means to an end. A
first step on the ladder!

Bad masters are the cause of so much suffering, that to protect
themselves, the great brother-hood of servants have imagined a system of
keeping run of "places," and giving them a "character" which an aspirant
can find out with little trouble. This organization is so complete, and
so well carried out, that a household where the lady has a "temper,"
where the food is poor, or whic