Many men work at night and it is not unlikely that many women would be willing to do it too. Women are not as timid as they were reputed to be in former years; they would neither scream nor faint nowadays at the sight of a little mouse scampering across the floor. Indeed quite recently the newspapers reported that a woman whose husband had just died had accepted the position of a night watchman, and she filled her new rôle so successfully that on one occasion she managed to seize a burglar and handed him over to a policeman.
This proposition of engaging a woman to work at night is only a suggestion, however, offered to those who find it absolutely necessary to have a domestic employee in their house at night. It remains to be proved if it could be carried out successfully.
But the great changes in housekeeping described in the preceding chapters are not mere suggestions nor theories of what might be done: each reform has already been put into actual practice. The result has been so extraordinary that one is impelled to believe that the only way to solve the Servant Problem is to apply business principles to housework in private homes.
Naturally such a revolution from methods now in vogue can not be wrought in a day, and the transitional period may be one of some difficulty and confusion for employer and employee alike who have spent a large portion of their lives under the old régime. But the revolution is imperative, and the ultimate benefit beyond calculation.