Household work; or, The duties of female servants : practically and economically illustrated, through the respective grades of maid-of-all-work, house and parlour-maid, and laundry-maid: with many valuable recipes for facilitating labour in every department; prepared for the use of the National and Industrial Schools of the Holy Trinity, at Finchley.

Date:
[between 1870 and 1879?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Household work; or, The duties of female servants : practically and economically illustrated, through the respective grades of maid-of-all-work, house and parlour-maid, and laundry-maid: with many valuable recipes for facilitating labour in every department; prepared for the use of the National and Industrial Schools of the Holy Trinity, at Finchley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    these, a servant’s character is nought. It is wortldess in the eyes of both God and man. When we have the property of another in charge, of whatsoever description, it is our bounden duty to be at least as careful of that property as though it were our own. Food is property—property that, in a family, is of a very costly nature. Let there, therefore, be no wanton or wicked waste of food, even to the extent of a crust of bread. Poultry, pastiy, delicacies of any sort, should never be consumed at the kitchen-table, unless by express per- mission of the mistress. “ Wh.cn it is understood that such things are to be set aside,” observes an intelligent writer, “ the touching them at all is dishonest.” To cut a slice from a pie or pudding, to pick the fruit out of a tart, to break off the edge of pastry,—tricks which young girls not unfrequently fall into,—not only renders the dish unsightly and offensive, but is an act of positive dishonesty; it is an unwarrantable appropriation of the property of others to our own use ; in other words, it is inching and stealing. It is a crime, for the commission of which a mistress would be perfectly justified in in- stantly discharging her servant, without a character, or even with the character of being dishonest. Temperance , in all things, forbearance, self-denial, are duties of our nature. “ Whatever is placed upon the kitchen-table should be fairly cut, and fairly eaten.” Whatever a ser- ] vant may be called upon to provide for the table, or for any other purpose, “ should be provided with reference to the quantity required. Beer should be drawn, bread cut, butter, flour, or milk, obtained for the daily and weekly consumption in proportion to the uses for which i they are required.” « 1 MORNING DUTIES. Q. As cooking forms a material part of the business ] of a Maid-of-all-work, I suppose you have read, and com- mitted to memory, all the principal portions of The Young Maid s Catechism, a little work which fully de- ( Bcribc's the different duties which a young girl has to make herself acquainted with on first entering service ? ,