it is quite another thing to try to enforce them. By
what coercive machinery is Betsy Jane to be forced into the detested
uniform? We know how deeply the Anglo-Saxon mind resents any social
"ticketing." Does a "Clergyman's Wife" suppose that the British
housemaid is exempt from this little weakness common to her race? At any
rate, we are convinced that she would never subside into a "lilac
print" or a "neat alpaca" without a tremendous struggle. Her first
weapon of defence would infallibly be a strike. It is absurd to suppose
that she would cling to her flowers and parasol with less tenacity than
cabby to his right of running over people in the dark.

Now, is a "Clergyman's Wife" prepared to face the consequences of such a
strike? Is she ready for an indefinite time to cook her own dinner, mend
her own dresses, dust her own rooms, manage her own nursery? What if the
vengeance of the housemaid menaced by the imposition of a "calico apron"
or a "medium straw bonnet" should assume a darker form, and a system of
domestic "rattening" should spread terror through the tranquil
parsonages of England? Is she prepared to brave the system of
intimidation by which a union of vindictive cooks and nursery-maids
might assert their inherent rights to lockets and earrings? Has she the
nerve to crush the secret plots of kitchen Fenianism? Ultimately, no
doubt, her efforts might be crowned with success. When that happy time
arrived, when "her suggestions were generally adopted," and the
"requirements of ladies, especially those of fortune, were generally
known" to comprise a uniform for the maid-servant, she might succeed in
closing the market of domestic service to the flaunting abigail whose
audacious finery renders her to the outward eye indistinguishable from
her own daughters.

But as that time would be long in coming, and probably would never
arrive in her lifetime, she would have to face the discomforts of a
long period of transition, during which she would have to rely on
herself and her daughters for the discharge of the various operations of
the household. Meantime we beg to suggest another way of effecting her
purpose quite as easy, and much more effectual. Why not go in for an Act
of Parliament, having for its object the total suppression of the
instinct of vanity in the female bosom? Let it be enacted that, on and
after the 1st of next April (the date would be appropriate), feathers,
flowers, and the other abominations whic