But in America all is undefined. In the first place, there is no class
who mean to make domestic service a profession to live and die in. It
is universally an expedient, a stepping-stone to something higher;
your best servants always have some thing else in view as soon as they
have laid by a little money; some form of independence which shall
give them a home of their own is constantly in mind. Families look
forward to the buying of landed homesteads, and the scattered brothers
and sisters work awhile in domestic service to gain, the common fund
for the purpose; your seamstress intends to become a dressmaker, and
take in work at her own house; your cook is pondering a marriage with
the baker, which shall transfer her toils from your cooking-stove to
her own.
Young women are eagerly rushing into every other employment, till
feminine trades and callings are all over-stocked. We are continually
harrowed with tales of the sufferings of distressed needle-women, of
the exactions, and extortions practiced on the frail sex in the many
branches of labor and trade at which they try their hands; and yet
women will encounter all these chances of ruin and starvation rather
than make up their minds to permanent domestic service.
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