hall want my servant to do
three months hence on a Monday morning. _Das hat keinen Zweck._"

"I know exactly what each one of my servants will do three months
hence on a Monday morning," you say. "It is quite easy. You plan it
all out...."

But you will never agree. The German has his or rather her own
methods, and you will always think her unmethodical but thrifty and
knowledgeable, and she will always think you extravagant and ignorant,
but "chic," and on these terms you may be quite good friends. In most
German households there is no such thing as the strict division of
labour insisted on here. Your cook will be delighted to make a blouse
for you, and your nurse will turn out the dining-room, and your
chambermaid will take the child for an airing. They are more human in
their relation to their employers. The English servant fixes a gulf
between herself and the most democratic mistress. The German servant
brings her intimate joys and sorrows to a good _Herrschaft_, and
expects their sympathy. When a girl has bad luck and engages with a
bad _Herrschaft_ she is worse off than in England, partly because when
German housekeeping is mean it sounds depths of meanness not unknown,
but extremely rare here; and also because a German servant is more in
the power of her employers and of the police than an English one.
Anyone who has read Klara Viebig's remarkable novel, _Das Taegliche
Brot_ (a story of servant life in Berlin) will remember the mistress
who kept every bit of dainty food under lock and key, and fed the
kitchen on soup-meat all the year round. The chambermaid gives way in
a moment of hunger and temptation, manages to get the key, and is
discovered by the worthless son of the house stealing cakes. He
threatens her with exposure if she will not listen to his love-making.
Even if there was no son and no love-making, a girl who once steals
cakes in Germany may go from place to place branded as a thief.
Because every servant has to have a _Dienstbuch_, which is under the
control of the police, and has to be shown to them whenever she leaves
her situation. There is no give and take of personal character in
Germany. Ladies do not see the last lady with whom a girl has lived.
They advertise or they go to a registry office where servants are
waiting to be engaged. In Berlin every third house seems to be a
registry office, and you hear as many complaints of the people who
keep them as you hear here. So the government has s