Note 237 — Chapter VI · DIFFICULTIES IN DOMESTIC SERVICE FROM THE STANDPOINT OF THE EMPLOYER
Reading edition
“When I began housekeeping in 1870 I had one ‘general housework girl’ who stayed with me nine years. Now I consider myself fortunate to retain a cook or a second girl as many weeks.”
“Thirty years ago I had no difficulty whatever. I do not think my character has changed meantime, or my method of treating servants, or our style of living, yet now it is almost impossible to secure servants.”
“The question is very different now from what it was forty years ago.”
“The problem in this place grows more perplexing every year.”
“Many housekeepers here are between the Scylla and Charybdis of trying to tolerate wretched, inefficient servants, and the impossibility of getting along with them.”