Why should this be?
"The war," says every one. "All the young women are busy conducting tramcars, selling bacon, and punching railway tickets."
But why are all the young women anxious to be anything but domestic servants?
As a matter of fact this dislike to service has not been brought about by the war; it has been growing steadily for many years, and to a great extent employers have only themselves to thank for a state of affairs which they so bitterly deplore.
PLATE II
THE DAVIS "ADAM" GAS FIRE IN AN ADAM STYLE MANTEL
The Ignorant Employer.
What sane person would undertake the management of a business knowing nothing of the conduct of it? Yet this is what young women of the moneyed classes have done ever since it became the fashion to despise domesticity, to imagine that housekeeping was a pursuit fit only for women too stupid to do anything else. The girl marries: to her, cookery and household work are deep, dark mysteries. How do you clean silver? How long does it take to turn out a bedroom? Do you allow 2 lbs. or 12 lbs. of margarine per week for a household of six persons? What is dripping? The cook says soup cannot be made without soup meat. Can't it? And what is soup meat? Imagine the annoyance of working under the control of such an employer!