I am well aware that wealthy and long-established families may not suffer much from this cause. Old servants well married, or a variety of well-paid servants with wide connections in the neighborhood, or deserving objects of charity personally met and understood, often prevent such persons from feeling any inconvenience; but for young housekeepers, for new residents, for persons of small means and few connections, there is no help.
I need not enlarge on the subject. There is no kind of female labor of which it is easy to get a prompt and suitable supply. To obviate this difficulty, I think there should be a sort of "Labor Exchange;" and this is a project which all classes would be glad to have carried out. How shall it be done? That, of course, must be settled by those who have the task in charge; but, to explain what I mean, I will offer a few suggestions. In the first place, What are the defects in the intelligence-offices now in existence?[31] There are several. They take cognizance of domestic servants alone. They are kept by ignorant or inexperienced persons, who often lose sight of the interests of both the employer and the employed in their own pecuniary loss or gain. These persons have necessarily little insight into character, and do not see how to bring the right persons together. They will send a slow, dawdling girl to an impatient, lively mistress;—a smart upstart to some meek, little wife, who has hardly learned the way to order her own house; and the natural misunderstandings will occur. Then the books of the office are irregularly kept, and closed to the applicant, so that you have no chance to select for yourself. Go down to an office, and ask for a servant; tell the keeper not to send a raw girl, not to send one without a recommendation, not to send a foreigner who cannot speak English; and go home. The odds are, that, while you are taking off your bonnet, there will be three rings at the bell. The first girl will be a barefooted imp of Erin, just from the steerage. Some one at the office has been watching three days for just such a hand to be broken into a farm-kitchen. The second wears a flower-garden on her head, more flounces than you do, and has, of course, no recommendation. Some soda-room wants her; but you do not. The third is high Dutch, and, when you ask her for the coal-hod, brings you, in her despair, the bread-tray. Neither of these three is what you ordered or wanted.
Do you ask me the reason of this bad management, and whether I think it can be remedied? The reason of it is, that the superintendence of these offices is not treated like a profession. People neither fit themselves for it, nor are attracted to it by nature: they simply do it; and how they do it we feel. They want comprehensive insight, have no business ways, and these difficulties are only to be obviated by bringing a higher intelligence to bear upon the arrangements.
Let us have a place where all kinds of female work can be sought and found; an intelligent working committee first, who know what is wanted, and how to get it, and who, most important of all, shall not be too wise to accept diplomas from experience.
Let us have a committee of five; its quorum to be three. Let these persons hire a large, clean, airy room, and appoint an intelligent superintendent,—one who will be interested to have the experiment thoroughly successful. Let them line the walls, and screen off the room with frames, having glass covers, to lock and unlock. Let one frame be devoted to cooks; another, to laundresses; another, to washerwomen, window-washers, charwomen, seamstresses, dressmakers, copyists, translators, or what you will; and under the glass the notices should be posted. Each should contain the name, age, and residence of the applicant; the situation last held, and for how long; the full address of the reference; and the date of posting. The date should be printed and movable, and changed semi-weekly, on the personal application of the poster. Each woman should pay five cents for the privilege of posting; should lose this privilege from misconduct, from neglect to report herself, from proved falsehood. No date should be left unchanged more than a week, and the superintendent should be responsible for the strict observance of the regulations. No woman, not even a charwoman, should be allowed to use the posting privilege, unless she has a reference. "What!" you will say, "is that kind?" Yes, it is kind: the want of it is doubly cruel. A woman who needs work can afford to offer a day's free work to get a reference; and referees should be required to tell the simple truth. A lady who once recommended a dishonest or incapable servant without the proper qualification should be struck off the books, not allowed to testify again in that court.
With regard to all transient labor, it should be the duty of the superintendent to see that the references are reliable before posting, so that those who apply in haste need not be delayed.
If a dressmaker or charwoman inform the superintendent that she has worked for A, B, and C, let a printed circular, addressed to such persons, inquiring if they can recommend her, and to what degree, be placed in her hands. To this she should bring written answers before being allowed to post.
If the institution became popular, books would have to be kept, corresponding to these glass cases—one book for cooks, another for housemaids, and so on; but the cases should never be given up. There should always be as many as the room will hold. Ladies should pay a certain sum for each servant they obtain; and the servant should pay for every place she gets, at a rate proportioned to the wages received. In most intelligence offices, the servants get two places for the same fee, if they do not stay over a week in the place, and the lady gets two girls or more on the same condition. This works like a premium on change of place. The servant should prove to the Labor Exchange, that she did not leave her place of her own will, and the lady should show that incapacity or insubordination made it impossible to keep her.
It should be a cash business, and a fee should be paid for each application. Wanting a cook, you go down to the room, and consult the proper frame. Finding, perhaps, forty posters, you select one that reads like this:—