The lady’s maid is in most cases a young girl from thirteen to sixteen years old. She looks after the clothes; as soon as they are taken off, she folds them and puts them into a chest of drawers or hangs them up if of daily wear. She waits at meals and does work about the sitting-room. She attends to the visitor, sets the cushion for him, and brings in tea, cake, and the brazier and “tobacco-tray.” She helps, too, to look after the children. Where there is a nurse for the little children, she naturally attends to them and carries them about; but generally the housemaid and the lady’s maid divide the duty between them; and as the latter is a young girl, she has to be very much helped by the housemaid.
The infant is commonly fed with its mother’s milk and is not as a rule weaned until its position as the pet of the family is threatened by a new arrival. Where the mother has no milk or is too sickly to give healthy milk, a wet nurse is engaged who has to be well fed and royally treated to make sure that her charge does not fare ill at her hands. Where there is a great deal of needlework to do, a needlewoman is employed. She is usually a woman of mature years, a widow, probably, and ‘a lone ’lorn creetur,’ who acts as a damper upon the exuberant spirits of the younger servants. In a large and well-to-do family there is sometimes a head-servant, a sort of housekeeper, who came in all probability into the family as the bride’s waiting-woman at the marriage of the present mistress or her mother-in-law. As the oldest servant with the authority she exercises over her younger fellow-domestics, she is held in hardly less reverence than her mistress, and every opportunity is seized to please her; for to cross her would be worse than to offend their mistress, and she is certainly more touchy than the other. She knows her power, too, and enjoys it to the full. She lets them serve her even more assiduously than her lady; and they help her to dress, and when she is tired, offer to shampoo her. She plays, in short, the retired lady more completely than her mistress’s honoured mother-in-law.
Of male domestics there are only a few. The jinrikisha-man is the only servant of that sex worth speaking of, that is, in a well-to-do middle-class family. He is in most cases engaged from a jinrikisha-master, who has a number of young coolies under him. He is well fed, as his is a severe physical work, and going as he does with his master to all sorts of places, he has to be treated well for fear he should give exaggerated accounts of petty family affairs at the houses where he waits for his master. He has his faults; but on the whole, he is a faithful, diligent, and willing servant.
THE HOUSE-BOY.
In many houses, especially of government officials and professional men, there is a young fellow or two, who would probably object to being classed with the servants, but who certainly do menial work. They are as a rule gentlemen by birth, distant relatives from the country or sons of friends in narrow circumstances. They are willing to do the house-boy’s work in return for their keep; and they are allowed to attend school or college. When they graduate, they are able to set up for themselves. Of this class of young men come a majority of those who have risen by tact or ability to high and responsible positions in the government and in the professions.
CHAPTER XIII.
MANNERS.
Decline of etiquette—Politeness and self-restraint—“Swear-words”—Honorifics—Squatting—Kissing—Calls made and received—Rules for behaviour in company—Inconsiderate visitors—Woman’s reserve before strangers—Hospitality—Reticence on family matters.
