Hard Enough, You May
Imagine, As It Is Baked Only Once A Year.
The servants also, in
most families, eat this kind of bread, and have a different kind of
food from their masters, which, in spite of all the arguments I have
heard to vindicate the custom, appears to me a remnant of barbarism.
In fact, the situation of the servants in every respect,
particularly that of the women, shows how far the Swedes are from
having a just conception of rational equality. They are not termed
slaves; yet a man may strike a man with impunity because he pays him
wages, though these wages are so low that necessity must teach them
to pilfer, whilst servility renders them false and boorish. Still
the men stand up for the dignity of man by oppressing the women.
The most menial, and even laborious offices, are therefore left to
these poor drudges. Much of this I have seen. In the winter, I am
told, they take the linen down to the river to wash it in the cold
water, and though their hands, cut by the ice, are cracked and
bleeding, the men, their fellow-servants, will not disgrace their
manhood by carrying a tub to lighten their burden.
You will not be surprised to hear that they do not wear shoes or
stockings, when I inform you that their wages are seldom more than
twenty or thirty shillings per annum. It is the custom, I know, to
give them a new year's gift and a present at some other period, but
can it all amount to a just indemnity for their labour? The
treatment of servants in most countries, I grant, is very unjust,
and in England, that boasted land of freedom, it is often extremely
tyrannical. I have frequently, with indignation, heard gentlemen
declare that they would never allow a servant to answer them; and
ladies of the most exquisite sensibility, who were continually
exclaiming against the cruelty of the vulgar to the brute creation,
have in my presence forgot that their attendants had human feelings
as well as forms. I do not know a more agreeable sight than to see
servants part of a family. By taking an interest, generally
speaking, in their concerns you inspire them with one for yours. We
must love our servants, or we shall never be sufficiently attentive
to their happiness; and how can those masters be attentive to their
happiness who, living above their fortunes, are more anxious to
outshine their neighbours than to allow their household the innocent
enjoyments they earn?
It is, in fact, much more difficult for servants, who are tantalised
by seeing and preparing the dainties of which they are not to
partake, to remain honest, than the poor, whose thoughts are not led
from their homely fare; so that, though the servants here are
commonly thieves, you seldom hear of housebreaking, or robbery on
the highway. The country is, perhaps, too thinly inhabited to
produce many of that description of thieves termed footpads, or
highwaymen.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 15 of 98
Words from 7291 to 7798
of 50703
