Why does she not adopt the methods of the business man in dealing with his employees?  The advisability of having household employees live outside their place of employment is so apparent that it ought to appeal to every one.  There would be no longer the necessity of putting aside and of furnishing certain rooms of the house for their accommodation:  a practice which in the majority of families is quite a serious inconvenience and always an expense.  In small homes where only one maid is kept, it may not make much difference to give up one room to her, but where several employees are needed, it means very often that many rooms must be used as sleeping apartments for them, frequently too a sitting room or a special dining room is given them.  This is not all, for the rooms must be furnished and kept clean and warm, and supplied with an unlimited amount of gas and electricity.  In many families the boarding and lodging of household employees cause as much anxiety and expense to the housewife as to provide for her own family.

And why does she do it?  Why does she consent to take upon herself so much extra trouble for nothing?  For, although she offers good food and a bed besides excellent wages to all who work for her, she is the most poorly served of all employers to-day.

In the great feudal castles of the Middle Ages it was not deemed safe for women to venture forth alone, even in the daytime, and so those engaged in housework were naturally compelled to live under their Master’s roof, eating at his table and sitting “below the salt.”  But the Master and the Serf of feudal times disappeared long ago, only the Mistress and her “servants” remain.

To-day, however, “servants” no longer sit at their employer’s table; they remain in the kitchen, where as a rule they are given to eat what is left from the family meals.  Some housewives, from motives of kindness and consideration for the welfare of those in their employ, have special meals prepared for them and served in a dining-room of their own at hours which do not conflict with the meals of the family.  But this does not always meet with gratitude or even due appreciation; the disdainful way in which Bridget often complains of the food too generously provided for her is well known.

A chambermaid came one day to her employer and said she did not wish to complain but thought it better to say frankly that she was not satisfied with what she was getting to eat in her house:  she wanted to have roast beef for dinner more often, at least three or four times a week, for she did not care to eat mutton, nor steak, and never ate pork, nor could she, to quote her own words “fill up on bread and vegetables as the other girls did in the kitchen.”

Then, and only then, did her employer wake up with a start to the realization of the true position every housewife occupies in the eyes of her household employees.  They evidently regard her in the light of a caterer; she does the marketing not only for her family but for them too.  She pays a cook high wages, not only to cook meals for herself and family, but for her employees also.