Chinese Servants

            Those who talk against the employment of Chinese as house servants know very little about the subject, surely.  It is next to impossible to get a good servant in Nelson.  The dearth is not alone in the hardworking “general” such as she is at home or in the Australian colonies, who is difficult to procure at any time, but in all kinds and classes of women who assist the mistress of a home to lighten its labors.  There always has been a decided aversion among our female population to becoming domestic servants, and the outlook for those who require such services is by no means encouraging.  This is a thing that is growing all over the world, and it may be put down largely to the result of education, the growth of factories of every description and the increased facilities opened up on every hand for the employment of women.  The average Chinese servant is a hundred times better off than the average slavey in England, where a girl can’t have a “sweetheart,” or any friends to come and see her in the house where she is working, and where she must work sixteen hours out of twenty-four, whether well or ill.  There is a good deal of inconsistency in those who prate about the employment of Chinese and ask “what will we do with our girls” when “our girls” won’t go out to service.