[25-*] Much real reformation might be effected, and most grateful services obtained, if families which consist wholly of females, would take servants recommended from the Magdalen—Penitentiary—or Guardian—who seek to be restored to virtuous society.
“Female servants who pursue an honest course, have to travel, in their peculiar orbit, through a more powerfully resisting medium than perhaps any other class of people in civilized life; they should be treated with something like Christian kindness: for want of this, a fault which might at the time have been easily amended has become the source of interminable sorrow.”
“By the clemency and benevolent interference of two mistresses known to the writer, two servants have become happy wives, who, had they been in some situations, would have been literally outcasts.”
A most laudable SOCIETY for the ENCOURAGEMENT of FEMALE SERVANTS, by a gratuitous registry, and by rewards, was instituted in 1813; plans of which may be had gratis at the Society’s House, No. 10, Hatton Garden. The above is an extract from the Rev. H. G. Watkins’s Hints to Heads of Families, a work well deserving the attentive consideration of inexperienced housekeepers.
[26-*] The greatest care should be taken by the man of fashion, that his cook’s health be preserved: one hundredth part of the attention usually bestowed on his dog, or his horse, will suffice to regulate her animal system.
“Cleanliness, and a proper ventilation to carry off smoke and steam, should be particularly attended to in the construction of a kitchen; the grand scene of action, the fire-place, should be placed where it may receive plenty of light; hitherto the contrary has prevailed, and the poor cook is continually basted with her own perspiration.”—A. C., Jun.
“The most experienced artists in cookery cannot be certain of their work without tasting: they must be incessantly tasting. The spoon of a good cook is continually passing from the stewpan to his tongue; nothing but frequent tasting his sauces, ragoûts, &c. can discover to him what progress they have made, or enable him to season a soup with any certainty of success; his palate, therefore, must be in the highest state of excitability, that the least fault may be perceived in an instant.
“But, alas! the constant empyreumatic fumes of the stoves, the necessity of frequent drinking, and often of bad beer, to moisten a parched throat; in short, every thing around him conspires quickly to vitiate the organs of taste; the palate becomes blunted; its quickness of feeling and delicacy, on which the sensibility of the organs of taste depends, grows daily more obtuse; and in a short time the gustatory nerve becomes quite unexcitable.
“If you find your cook neglect his business—that his ragoûts are too highly spiced or salted, and his cookery has too much of the ‘haut goût,’ you may be sure that his index of taste wants regulating; his palate has lost its sensibility, and it is high time to call in the assistance of the apothecary.
“‘Purger souvent’ is the grand maxim in all kitchens where le Maître d’Hôtel has any regard for the reputation of his table. Les Bons Hommes de Bouche submit to the operation without a murmur; to bind others, it should be made the first condition in hiring them. Those who refuse, prove they were not born to become masters of their art; and their indifference to fame will rank them, as they deserve, among those slaves who pass their lives in as much obscurity as their own stewpans.”