The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 | Page 6

might be and ought to be among the most
useful of our social institutions: they are, as a class, utterly worthless,
and many of them are positively dens of thieves. Almost without
exception they are conducted upon the vicious principle I have just
above discussed, and in them the servant is confirmed in her belief that
the employing class is a class of cruel oppressors. The interest of the
employer seems to be held by the managers of most of these institutions

as absolutely of no account. The following conversation, which
actually took place in one of these offices, between its proprietor and an
applicant for a domestic, will illustrate, better than a lengthy
disquisition could do, the system upon which too many of these
employment agencies are conducted:
LADY. I want a girl for general housework.
PROPRIETOR. Well, I can suit you, if you can be suited. Here's a girl,
now, just out of a place, and I can recommend her (beckoning to one of
the fifty girls who are seated in full hearing of all that passes).
LADY (after a few questions addressed to the girl, who, of course, can
cook, and bake, and wash and iron, and is extravagantly fond of
'childer,' etc., etc.). Well, there is one thing I am very particular about. I
want a girl who is honest. The last girl I had from you I had to
discharge for making too free with my stores for the benefit of her own
family relations.
PROPRIETOR (with an insolent sneer). Honest! humph! that depends
upon what you call honest. Some people call a girl a thief if she takes a
bit of cake from the pantry without saying, 'By your leave.' (Chorus of
giggles and approbatory nods from the sympathizing audience of fifty.)
The crude notions of the respective rights of meum and tuum furnished
the 'help' graduated by such an institution, may be imagined.
Some pains are occasionally taken to provide a regular customer,
whose patronage it is desirable to retain, with a good servant, but
generally all is fish that comes to their net. The business is now in such
ill odor that intelligence-office servants are proverbial for
worthlessness and all the worst qualities of the class. I have known a
thief, a drunkard, and a vixen to be sent from one of these offices in
succession, the victimized housekeeper finally begging that no more be
sent, preferring to let the retaining fee go, than to be pestered any
further. It is well known that the more decent and self-respecting of the
class of domestics rarely, now, enter their names upon the books of
intelligence offices. Indeed, such seldom have occasion to seek places;

if they do, they usually prefer to advertise.
In this employment-agency business a radical reform is needed. A
respectable and conscientious man at the head of such an institution,
managing it upon the principle that it is just as much his interest to
furnish the employer with a good servant as to provide the servant with
a good place, would be truly a public benefactor. In this, as in all other
kinds of business, honesty would be found the best policy. It is a base
imposition to recommend as good a servant who is known to be bad,
and it is just as dishonest to recommend as good one whose character is
totally unknown. It should be the business of every purveyor of
household 'help' to ascertain, by rigid investigation, the characters and
qualifications of those who apply for places; and they should steadily
refuse to have anything to do with any they cannot honestly
recommend. This, we repeat, they would speedily find their best policy.
In this way, and this only, can they win back the confidence and
patronage of the public; and they would soon find that the worthless
characters who now constitute their main stock in trade, would be
superseded by a much better class. There would be another important
benefit to the servants themselves in such a course. In an office thus
conducted, the known necessity of being able to show a clean record in
order to procure a place, would reform many a bad servant, who now,
knowing that her twenty-five cents will procure her a place (and no
questions asked by the agent, so that he need tell no lies), has no
incentive to improvement or good conduct. There would soon be a
rivalry among servants as to who should stand highest upon the roll of
merit.
The fault which has been before alluded to under the name of
'independence,' deserves more special mention than I have yet given it.
It is probably the most exasperating, as it is the most general of all the
failings of servants. It makes the timid and sensitive housekeeper