Tus domestic servants at Home are combining with a view to obtain enlarged privileges, greater freedom and more pay. We have long regarded them'as in some respects an oppressed class, but probably the agitation proceeds from those members of the body whohaveleast cause to complain. The life ofan English "maid of all work" is one of severe hardship, with scanty recreations and immediate surroundings unfavourable to health, but it is not the English maids of all work who are the first to rise in rebellion against the masters and mistresses. The movement originates in Scotland, and is copied. the manservants, who have very slight grounds for grumbling, If we compare the life of "Jeames" with that of a native servant in China, however, we see that many advantages are in the. possession of the Mongolian do-mastic, and if the leaders of the "movement" at Home could only get alist of the privileges in foreign service and immunities of a' "heathen Chine," they would have a very telling point for their next appeal. The demure boy who waits behind our chair, is not compelled to. wear any odious badges of servitude. Though he is believed by many to belong to an inferior race, we do not oblige him to powder his hair, to wear breeches and silk stockings, or to flaunt in flaming colours unfavourable to his complexion. We pay him very liberally, and house him very well. He has various opportunities of increasing his wages (we beg pardon "salary "), and we have every reason to believe that he avails himself of these opportunities to the best of his power. He is well fed, well clothed and well paid; and he has the peculiar satisfaction whenever he squeezes exceptionally hard that he is "spoiling the Egyptians," so he has all the advan.
of gainful larceny and all the consolations of exalted patriotism at the same time. It is true that the Chinese boy is now and then, in accordance with a well known decision of a Shanghai magistrate, subjected to real punishment. The "necessary cat" which chastises the garotter is not used, but a horse whip is occasionally, we are told, allowed to curl itself playfully around the lithe body of a native domestic. The propriety or impropriety of the process is not the matter at pre. sent before us; enough that it exists, and that it is a circumstance which makes against the complete happiness of the-Chinaman in domestic service. "Jeames," on the other hand, is not castigated, but he is "put "upon" in various ways. He is compelled to sleep downstairs, in unhealthy cup. boards, and in the season he is harassed by waiting for his master and mistress, in cold, and damp, and rain, up to the very small hours of the dismal London night.
The coolie, we are ready enough to admit, does some hard work, but the boy leads a life of quiet and rest, He has many hours for repose, and he enjoys the society of a numerous circle of friends. But the footman at home has many duties which here fall to the lot of the coolie. He isthe attendant of his employer abroad, and endures some of the penalties of the' English climate. The Chinese servant is not kept up very late or compelled to rise very early; and though he is supposed by a fiction to live on the master's pre mises, he is allowed considerable latitude and liberty, and in many cases has a separate establishment of his own.
'Thus far, it would seem that all the gain is on the side of the Chinaman. To reverse the point of view, however. Is the Englishman in his own' country or the Englishman in China best served? We are disposed to believe that the middle class Briton, who would have the ministrations of a housemaid at home, at dinner and breakfast, is more thoroughly, though perhaps not so wsthetically, served by the blue-gowned Chinese than by the neat-handed aproned Phillis of the country town or the suburban villa. In China we know nothing of "little tempers" or of "followers" on the part of our domestics, and we are free from any hesitation in correcting faults. We may be accused of harshness to our menials, but by all accounts we are not much worse than the Dundee Clergy, if as bad; and severity to a stalwart Chinaman, able to hold his own, is not nearly so repre-sensible as harshness to a Scotch lassie of ingenuous modesty and pleasing appearance.
The fact is that the whole question of domestic servitude is demanding 7 adjustment in the West. The seed sown by Voltaire in one pregnant sentence—"Nor can one man become the master
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.