to this unnecessary and burthensome piece of generosity unknown to
our forefathers, who only gave gifts to servants at Christmas-tide,
which custom is yet kept into the bargain; insomuch that a maid
shall have eight pounds per annum in a gentleman’s or merchant’s
family. And if her master is a man of free spirit, who receives
much company, she very often doubles her wages by her veils; thus
having meat, drink, washing, and lodging for her labour, she throws
her whole income upon her back, and by this means looks more like
the mistress of the family than the servant-wench.
And now we have mentioned washing, I would ask some good
housewifely gentlewoman, if servant-maids wearing printed linens,
cottons, and other things of that nature, which require frequent
washing, do not, by enhancing the article of soap, add more to
housekeeping than the generality of people would imagine? And yet
these wretches cry out against great washes, when their own
unnecessary dabs are very often the occasion.
But the greatest abuse of all is, that these creatures are become
their own lawgivers; nay, I think they are ours too, though nobody
would imagine that such a set of slatterns should bamboozle a whole
nation; but it is neither better nor worse, they hire themselves to
you by their own rule.
That is, a month’s wages, or a month’s warning; if they don’t like
you they will go away the next day, help yourself how you can; if
you don’t like them, you must give them a month’s wages to get rid
of them.
This custom of warning, as practised by our maid-servants, is now
become a great inconvenience to masters and mistresses. You must
carry your dish very upright, or miss, forsooth, gives you warning,
and you are either left destitute, or to seek for a servant; so
that, generally speaking, you are seldom or never fixed, but always
at the mercy of every new comer to divulge your family affairs, to
inspect your private life, and treasure up the sayings of yourself
and friends. A very great confinement, and much complained of in
most families.
Thus have these wenches, by their continual plotting and cabals,
united themselves into a formidable body, and got the whip hand of
their betters; they make their own terms with us; and two servants
now, will scarce undertake the work which one might perform with
ease; notwithstanding which, they have raised their wages to a most
exorbitant pitch; and, I doubt not, if there be not a stop put to
their career, but they will bring wages up to 201. per annum in
time, for they are much about half way already.
It is by these means they run away with a great part of our money,
which might be better employed in trade, and what is worse, by
their insolent behaviour, their pride in dress, and their
exorbitant wages, they give birth to the following inconveniences.
First, They set an ill example to our children, our apprentices,
our covenant servants, and other dependants, by their saucy and
insolent behaviour, their pert, and sometimes abusive answers,
their daring defiance of correction, and many other insolences
which youth are but too apt to imitate.
Secondly, By their extravagance in dress, they put our wives and
daughters upon yet greater excesses, because they will, as indeed
they ought, go finer than the maid; thus the maid striving to outdo
the mistress, the tradesman’s wife to outdo the gentleman’s wife,
the gentleman’s wife emulating the lady, and the ladies one
another; it seems as if the whole business of the female sex were
nothing but an excess of pride, and extravagance in dress.
Thirdly, The great height to which women-servants have brought
their wages, makes a mutiny among the men-servants, and puts them
upon raising their wages too; so that in a little time our servants
will become our partners; nay, probably, run away with the better
part of our profits, and make servants of us vice versa. But yet
with all these inconveniences, we cannot possibly do without these
creatures; let us therefore cease to talk of the abuses arising
from them, and begin to think of redressing them. I do not set up