Also, there are the servant girls. We cannot hope that a highly efficient, intelligent young girl will perform menial labor some sixteen hours a day for a few dollars a week and board, with the privilege of eating off the tubs and sleeping in a five-by-seven closet off the kitchen, when she can obtain a clerkship in one of the department stores where she has light, clean employment, shorter hours, and sees something of the passing show; or when, by attending night school for a short time, she can learn stenography and command even better salary for still shorter hours. It requires quite as much intelligence to be a capable house servant as to be a good clerk; and as for education, there is no lack of that in these days, whatever the rank of life. Even when a girl prefers household service, if she be bright and capable it is but a question of time when she will find employment with those to whom the question of wages is considered as secondary to that of the quality of service obtained in return.
So you see we must not expect too much of our "girl for general housework," unless we are prepared to pay her for her longer hours and harder work something approximating the sum we pay to the other girl who comes down in a sailor hat and pretty shirt waist at nine or ten to take a few letters and typewrite them, and read a nice new novel between times until say five o'clock, and who gets four weeks' vacation in hot weather, and five if she asks for it prettily, with no discontinuance of salary. All this may be different, some day, but while we are waiting, let us not forget that there are many things in the world that it would be well to remember, and that "the greatest of these" and the one that embraces all the rest, "is Charity!"
LORDS OF THE NORTH
By A. C. LAUT
A Strong Historical Novel
LORDS OF THE NORTH is a thrilling romance dealing with the rivalries and intrigues of The Ancient and Honorable Hudson's Bay and the North-West Companies for the supremacy of the fur trade in the Great North. It is a story of life in the open; of pioneers and trappers. The life of the fur traders in Canada is graphically depicted. The struggles of the Selkirk settlers and the intrigues which made the life of the two great fur trading companies so full of romantic interest, are here laid bare. Francis Parkman and other historians have written of the discovery and colonization of this part of our great North American continent, but no novel has appeared so full of life and vivid interest as Lords of the North. Much valuable information has been obtained from old documents and the records of the rival companies which wielded unlimited power over a vast extent of our country. The style is admirable, and the descriptions of an untamed continent, of vast forest wastes, rivers, lakes and prairies, will place this book among the foremost historical novels of the present day. The struggles of the English for supremacy, the capturing of frontier posts and forts, and the life of trader and trapper are pictured with a master's hand. Besides being vastly interesting, Lords of the North is a book of historical value.