Paris housewives are on the warpath against the Law of 1904, by which registry offices are entitled to 3 per cent. of a newly engaged servant's wages for the first year, chargeable to the employer. In most fashionable arrondissements a petition for the abrogation of this law has already received 2,000 signatures, and within the next two months it is confidently expected that the total will have risen to 4,000.
Everybody is agreed that the present crisis is due, as in England, to the fact that there is a certain contempt, both in town and country, far the '"Larbin™ add the "Bonniche."''The war offered young women am opportunity to earn better wages and enjoy a freer existence by working in munition shops. All those able to stand the strain still remained factory hands when the war was over. Thus the demand for domestic servants is still greatly in excess of the supply, especially of "generals."
This already trying situation is render. ed more acute by the work of the obnoxious Law of 1904. The domestic servant, having no registry fee to pay, is tempted to pack her box at the slight: est difference with her mistress after the "trial" fortnight. On the other hand, registry offices are tempted to look with a kindly eye om the servant who changes mistresses frequently, and it is also to their interest, that wages should be as high as possible. Where the ordinary servant's wages before the war averaged 40f. [then £1 12s.] a month, they now stand at 150f. [at the present rate of exchange about £3). Very often a "general"? stipulates that there is to be no washing done at home, and still more often the mistress finds that she has no notion of cooking.
The petitioners' demands are eminent. ly reasonable. Up to 1904 servants alone had to pay registry fees. That' was manifestly unjust. The Law of 1904 freed the servant and laid the whole of the burden on the employer. This was still unjust, and for the reasons stated above, immoral. "Let each party—say the housewives—pay half the fee, and if at the end of six months the servant is still in her place the mistress shall reimburse her. If she leaves before the six months are over she will lose the right to reimbursement.'?
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.