And now we have mentioned washing, I would ask some good housewifely
gentlewoman, if servant-maids wearing printed linens, cottons, and other
things of that nature, which require frequent washing, do not, by
enhancing the article of soap, add more to housekeeping than the
generality of people would imagine? And yet these wretches cry out
against great washes, when their own unnecessary dabs are very often the
occasion.
But the greatest abuse of all is, that these creatures are become their
own lawgivers; nay, I think they are ours too, though nobody would
imagine that such a set of slatterns should bamboozle a whole nation; but
it is neither better nor worse, they hire themselves to you by their own
rule.
That is, a month's wages, or a month's warning; if they don't like you
they will go away the next day, help yourself how you can; if you don't
like them, you must give them a month's wages to get rid of them.
This custom of warning, as practised by our maid-servants, is now become
a great inconvenience to masters and mistresses. You must carry your
dish very upright, or miss, forsooth, gives you warning, and you are
either left destitute, or to seek for a servant; so that, generally
speaking, you are seldom or never fixed, but always at the mercy of every
new comer to divulge your family affairs, to inspect your private life,
and treasure up the sayings of yourself and friends.
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