to find husbands.  A girl in service is quite as anxious to get a husband as her young mistresses, and, indeed, it is of much more consequence for her to do so.  She sees her youth slipping away from her in a place where no ‘followers’ are allowed, and it is no wonder that she ‘wants a change.’  She has a right to have her holidays and her ‘Sundays out,’ and it is the mistress’s duty not only to grant them, but to make some inquiry as to how she spends them.  Many ladies who go to church with much regularity never take the smallest interest in the moral conduct of those to whom they stand, morally if not legally, in loco parentis, and who may, perhaps, have no other adviser.

Mistresses of all ranks, too, show a lamentable want of principle in the matter of character-giving.  It wants, no doubt, a certain strength of mind to write the truth.  ‘The girl is going, thank Heaven,’ they say to themselves, and they are glad to get rid of her, without a row, at the easy price of a small falsehood.  They lay the flattering unction to their souls that they are concealing certain facts in order ’not to stand in the way of the poor girl’s future.’  What they are really doing is an act of selfishness, cruel as regards the lady who is trusting to their word, and baneful as regards the public good.  It is the good characters which make the bad servants.  In a certain primitive district of England, where ministers are ‘called’ from parish to parish, one of the churchwardens of X complained to the churchwardens of Y that his late importation from the Y pulpit was not very satisfactory.  ’And yet,’ he said, ‘you all cracked him up enormously.’  ‘Yes,’ replied the churchwarden of Y, ’and you will have to crack him up too before you get rid of him.’

Now, it is only ignorance which causes ladies to believe that there is any necessity to ‘crack up’ the character of a servant.  They are not obliged (though, of course, if the servant has behaved well it would be infamous to withhold it) to give her any character at all, and they may state the most unpleasant truth (if they are quite certain of the fact and can prove it) without the least fear of an action for libel.  The law does not punish them for telling the truth about their servants, and in another matter also it is more just than it is supposed to be.  There is a superstition among servants that when leaving their situations before their time is out they have a right to claim board wages, and that even when dismissed for gross misconduct they have a right to their ordinary wages for the remainder of the month; but these are mere popular errors.  The only case with which I am acquainted where neither of these dues was demanded was rather a curious one.  A widow lady advertised for a cook and a housemaid, and procured them by the first cast of her net.  They came together with an open avowal of their previous acquaintanceship; they were attached to one another, they said, and did not wish to be in separate service, and wages were