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Show AN EDITORIAL BY ! FLORENCE DAVIES ! MENTAL HXZVRI) IN HOI Si: RK Most homes need a good cook more i than they do a physician If clean I I dishes arc essential to a healthy. hap- I py home, for you can't get the clean I dishes without the dirty water." There is m gainsaying the above j the expression of Alice Poote Mac- Dougall, who happens to bo an em-I em-I pi oyer of both domestic and com-' n . r i r la I help. She goes on quite ln- ' terestlngly: I "That there is a scarcity of servants l is because public opinion has been in- fluenced against tne girt who goes into Service'. ihe Is looked down upon, ! especially by young men. because her position, while a factory worker. With less actual gain, and certainly small -ler opportunity for self Improvement,, lis accepted. This Is ivrong, barm- ful and unfair. The work has to bo; i done Someone must do It. Just as j surntone must mine coal and d other 'hard and disagreeable tasks. There is no um making It harder by adding a mental hazard " I Every Job has its mental hazards; ; few of us are exempt from them in I one form or another. Wo -are afraid to attempt things; we fear we areu t enual to some task; we believe some-I some-I body else is more clever, more lal-.1 lented thnr we are. The mental haz-: ard is subjective; we make It for our- I sel ves. j But in domestic service the hazard Isn't erected by the employee. Mrs. MacDougall. in the article from which the quotations are taken, lays the blame upon 'writers who have stignu I tized domestic service as unworthy," j but that seems to be begging the ques- tlon. If domestic service is under a .-tlgma "and no doubt It is among th-snobbish th-snobbish and unthinking! and if he-cause he-cause of this stigma householders find a difficulty in procuring sufficient! help, would it not be the part of wisdom wis-dom 10 ask how much of this stigma Is due to the attitude of the mistress toward the maid? For there lies, the true answer. Mrs. BlecDougall hasn't said enough. As an employer; of help In both a downtown business house and an uptown homo, she surely! could enlighten us considerably as to J her experience in engaging- In pay-1 ing and ln working both classes of' worker. l"oes her .hainbermald and herl stenograph';- stand each In exactly the same relation to her? Does she add any mental hazard to her parlor maid that she does not impose upon her bookee'.er 1 How similar are the respeetlve standings, privileges and rights of her kit- hen maid and her1 office boy? Too bad that Mrs Mae iH'Ugal! hasn't enlightened us on these! problems, it would have gone far to help those housewives who aren't so fortunate as to know intimately two: Phases of the labor question. But howl won l-i it be If each housewife. Inl dealing with her domcstb- help would ask herself if she is adding to her servants problem any mental hazard which her husband does not, dare not impose upon those who comprise his corps of helpers in his office or factoi-.v ? |