The growing antipathy to service is a sign of the times which has to be reckoned with. Nor is this wonderful. No class of the community are kept to so perpetual a round of labour as the domestic servant. With the exception of an occasional afternoon or evening—often it is not more than once in a fortnight—those who live below-stairs rarely have an hour which they can call entirely their own. They may perhaps frequently have an opportunity of getting through their work early in the day, but they must not leave the house till they have asked permission. Again, they may stay in the same family for many years. But what do they gain by it? There is in England no such recognition of long and faithful service as exists in Germany. Seven years ago, the Empress of the Fatherland instituted a Long Service Order, and since that time many hundreds of domestic servants who have lived with the same master and mistress for forty years, have received from royalty diplomas and golden crosses.
Is such an Order impossible in Great Britain? Could we not modify and adapt it to ourselves? If a person is to work well for any length of time, some motive must be found. Why should not a system of rewards be adopted? No one can doubt that if a lady, when engaging a domestic, said, ‘Supposing you stay with me and perform your duties to the best of your ability for ten years, I will, in consideration thereof, present you at the termination of your engagement with twenty-five pounds,’ the effect would be beneficial. On condition of being assured that the money was safe, many servants, for the sake of the bonus, would consent to accept lesser wages than they receive at present. Even though the plan now suggested cost a few pounds more than would be spent under existing circumstances, would not the freedom from worry and anxiety be ample compensation? The outlay, however, would probably amount to little more than is now expended in advertising, in paying fares to and from the house for the purpose of interviews, and in various other ways incidental to the constantly recurring necessity of engaging servants.
Further, there can be no reason why mistresses should not agree to let each of their servants have a certain number of hours during the week which they may consider their own. The one drawback to service, in the eyes of many who would be better off in service than they are now, is, that they cannot have the evenings which at present are at their disposal. If the housewife gives the matter a little thought, she will see that this is an enigma the solution of which is not impracticable. The future must be pregnant with reform in the relations between the occupants of the drawing-room and of the servants’ hall. If masters and mistresses are wise, they will rob the revolutionary spirit of the age of any force it may have, by anticipating in a generous and liberal-handed manner claims which, if ignored, may result in a condition of things as undesirable as that which to-day obtains in Australia, where servants, at least as they are known in the old country, are non-existent.
A SUBAQUEOUS EXCURSION.
Our good-fortune in obtaining permission to descend a caisson of the gigantic Forth Bridge—which when completed will be one of the most stupendous railway viaducts in the world—obtained additional zest from the fact that comparatively few structures are founded on what is termed the pneumatic principle in this country—the employment of compressed air being more in vogue on the continent—and still fewer are open to the passing visitor, uninfluenced alike by professional or scientific ardour.
Arrived at North Queensferry, on the Fife side of the Firth of Forth, we embark for the island in mid-channel, and rounding the easternmost promontory of the rock, see before us a huge iron cylinder, which, but for the incongruity of its position, we should take for a gasometer, and not a caisson. We land, and are forthwith marshalled to the dressing-room. Leathern caps and garments of a sombre blue hue are donned, and we are ready to descend. Before, however, proceeding, a brief outline of the working of a caisson, the end in view, and the means adopted in the attainment of that end, may be given, which will enable the reader to follow our movements.
Over the site of the proposed pier, a large circular cylinder is sunk, which rests on the rock-bottom, and has its upper edge slightly above high water. A horizontal floor divides the cylinder into two chambers. The lower chamber, seven feet in height, is charged with compressed air by machinery situated on shore, and connected with it by flexible hose. The air under pressure excludes the water, enabling workmen to descend into the lower chamber—which is, in fact, a large diving-bell—and to excavate the rock on which the caisson rests. The excavated material is drawn up in buckets or ‘skips’ and thrown over, whilst the caisson gradually descends by its own weight until a level bed is formed. The upper and lower chambers of the caisson are then filled with concrete, and this circular monolithic foundation carries the granite pier on which rests the steel superstructure. A tube, connecting the air-chamber below with an air-lock on the upper platform of the caisson, gives access to the working beneath. In principle, the air-lock of a caisson in no way differs from the well-known lock on a canal. The air-lock is formed by a tube of larger diameter, which surrounds the upper end of the vertical tube leading to the air-chamber.
Having entered this outer chamber, the door is closed behind us, and our connection with the outer world severed. A cock is turned, and with a steady hiss, the compressed air enters, a fact of which we soon become painfully conscious by the pressure that is brought to bear upon the drum of the ear. We follow the directions previously given us, and by copiously swallowing the compressed air and forcing it into the ears, with closed nostrils, we equalise the pressure on both sides of the drums, and succeed in accommodating ourselves to the novel atmospheric conditions. The inrush of compressed air at length ceases; and the pressure being now equal in the outer chamber—in which we are—and the internal tube, the door between them opens without difficulty. We enter, and descending a vertical ladder some ninety feet, we find ourselves in the air-chamber, and standing on the solid rock-bed of the Firth of Forth fifty feet below water-level. The scene is as striking as it is novel. A circular iron chamber, seventy feet in diameter and seven feet high, brilliantly illuminated by arc-lights suspended from the roof. Groups of foreign workmen—enlisted for this service, owing to continental experience in this class of work—are busily engaged in levelling the surface of the rock. The majority of these men wield pick and bar; whilst others fill the iron tubs or ‘skips’ with the fragments of rock, which are then drawn to the surface, passing through a lock similar in principle, though differing slightly in design from that we have ourselves traversed; and having discharged their contents over the edge of the caisson, return for another load.
We would fain linger amid a scene so weird and wonderful; but time fails, and we must return to ‘bank.’ We take a last look at the air-chamber with its busy occupants, and ascending the ladder, not without exertion, for a vertical ladder at all times calls muscle into play, and the pressure we are under by no means lightens our labours, we find ourselves again in the air-lock. The reverse process now takes place. The inner door is closed, the compressed air is allowed to escape from the outer chamber in which we now are, and causes a thick mist, cold and chilly. Before long, the pressure ceases; the outer door opens, and we again tread terra firma. The pressure-gauge records thirty pounds per square inch.
We now discard our exploring garments, and having enjoyed a not unneedful wash, we quit the works, and returning homewards, congratulate each other on having trodden the very foundations of the wonderful Forth Bridge, and ponder how little the future traveller, as he lightly skims the estuary at sixty miles an hour, will think of the practical ingenuity and patient labour that wrought, deep down beneath the waters of the Forth, the foundations on which repose the huge structures through which the flying express is whirling him.