as a housemaid at 25 pounds per annum, and you will find that she
literally does not know how to hold her broom, and has never handled
a duster. When you ask a nurse her qualifications for the care of
perhaps two or three young children, you may find, on close
cross-examination, that she can recollect having once or twice "held
mother's baby," and that she is very firm in her determination that
"you'll keep baby yourself o' nights; mem!" A perfectly
inexperienced girl of this sort will ask, and get, 30 pounds or 35
pounds per annum, a cook from 35 pounds to 40 pounds; and when they
go "up country," they hint plainly they shall not stay long with
you, and ask higher wages, stipulating with great exactness how they
are to be conveyed free of all expense to and from their place.

Then, on the other hand, I must say they work desperately hard, and
very cheerfully: I am amazed how few servants are kept even in the
large and better class of houses. As a general rule, they, appear
willing enough to learn, and I hear no complaints of dishonesty or
immorality, though many moans are made of the rapidity with which a
nice tidy young woman is snapped up as a wife; but that is a
complaint no one can sympathise with. On most stations a married
couple is kept; the man either to act as shepherd, or to work in the
garden and look after the cows, and the woman is supposed to attend
to the indoor comforts of the wretched bachelor-master: but she
generally requires to be taught how to bake a loaf of bread, and
boil a potato, as well as how to cook mutton in the simplest form.
In her own cottage at home, who did all these things for her? These
incapables are generally perfectly helpless and awkward at the
wash-tub; no one seems to expect servants to know their business,
and it is very fortunate if they show any capability of learning.