BREACH OF PROMISE AS A PROFESSION.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3493, 6 April 1912, Page 2

BREACH OF PROMISE AS A PROFESSION.

ONE GIRL MAKES £7OOO. Servants in wealthy establishments, as a rule, marry someone in service (says an Eglisli writer). A butler or valet, for example, very commonly marries a lady’s maid or housekeeper who has been in the same situation with him for any length of time. The great drawback to a servant marrying, however, is that it generally means that he and Jiis wife have to leave service. In very wealthy establishments where two of the upper servants marry employment may be found for them perhaps on the estate of their master, or possibly they may be retained in their respective positions until children arrive, and then, of course, they must set up .an independent establishment of their own. Sometimes in such cases the wife leaves service, and the man continues in his situation. I know of several members of the House of Lords wlicse valets and butlers are married and whose wives and children have to live away from them. Owing to the difficulties of getting married whilst they are in service, servants sometimes get married secretly. I was in a. situation where the butler had secretly married her ladyship’s dressing-maid, no one in the establishment suspected they were married, hut just after I had taken the situation (I went as second valet) the first valet, began to pay his court to the maid, and then the trouble began. GAVE THE VALET A THRASHING Tho maid was an extremely pretty, attractive-looking girl; there was not an atom of harm in her, and she was very devoted to her husband, but she was a lively sort of girl, and, like many another pretty lass I have met in service, she rather liked attention. The butler put- up with the' valet's attentions to his wife for a little while, but at. last he became jealous. He told the valet to keep clear of Miss whereupon the valet promptly retorted that that was no business of the butler’s, and declared that he would pay just as much attention as he pleased to the maid.

The girl, seeing that her husband was becoming jealous, tried to'avoid the valet, but the more she did so the more he pressed his attentions on her.

One evening came the climax. The butler caught the valet trying to kiss the dressing-maid, whereupon he first of all gave the valet a sound thrashing, and the following day lie and his wife ran off without giving a word of warning to the master or her ladyfib ip. I do not know what. happened to them afterwards, but the two would have .saved themselves a lot of trouble if they had not made a secret of their marriage. “NEVER MIND THAT CAT!” I was in another situation where the second valet had secretly married ■a girl who was nuud to one of the young ladies. One day the maid, when being rather severely reprimanded for carelessness by her young mistress (who had, by the way, .by no mean* tho best of tempers), burst into tears, whereupon the valet, who was within hearing, rushed into her young ladyship's dressing-room, and.' talcing th'e maid’s hands in his, exclaimed: “Never mind that cat, Molly; I won’t let her say a word tp you!” Her ladyship screamed and ran off to look for her mother, and that evening the valet and his wife were both packed off out of the house;A valet or butler who lias been for any length of time in service, and has saved a bit of money, becomes a- hit of a “catch” among the maidservants, and lie has to keep a weather eye open lest he fall a victim to some designing maid who is after his money or who may involve him in a breach of promise action. I got “caught” once myself, when I was in service with a very wealthy American and his wife who had taken a house in Grosvenor Square for the season.

Mv mistress had three dressingmaids, one of whom made a dead set at me from the first day we met in tli e servants’ hall, I never liked the girl, but I felt I could not well be dis agreeable to her. I was young at the time and rather inexperienced in such matters. Anyway, I took the girl out for a few walks, and once- or twice to the tic*., tre, and then one night coming home she asked me when we were "oing to fie married, and hurst into tea ns when J said I had no idea cf getting married at all.

I had to pay her £l-50, and the first valet told me I was getting off oh up on the whole. Ho had once, he foie] me, toVpay £SOO to a housekeeper whom.lie had only taken out once to a theatre, and who swore he had asked her to marry him that evening. There are some servants who go from place to place getting money in this way from the luckless made'servants who fall victims in their wiles. I know of one woman who in ten years obtained not less than £7OOO ‘from various servants. FLIRTS IN THE KITCHEN. A great deal of flirting goes on in most large establishments.between the maids and the men servants, but it is generally of a harmless character and the hensekeper, if she 3 a go d serv:uit, and knows, her busings, looks veil after the maids in 'i ; v i-lunge. Ret the “tone” of the -efvin’s’ ha.l V'.riee a B ccd <l & al diffr v <rtabbsnments. j

I’’ some of the very wealthiest, hous|'s it js nowadays very bad «r,d ] have l !>'••• n > " some houses where I unurl be very sorry indeed to see one of my daughters employed. The fact" is that the servants’ hall is not so likelv a place for a'young girl to find a husband in as it. was when I was young. When I was a hoy most young girls who went into service in a big, wealth- establishment would oiten became engaged before they bad been many years in service, but would not marry until they had saved some money. This might be in ten years time or less. Nowadays service in vei'.y wealthy establishment,'.; makes servants lazy and gives them verv luxurious ideas, and the longer, they stay in it the less disposed thev feel to take the burden of an establishment of their own on their shoulders.