y. I get from
seven to nine dollars a week in a shop where I work; if I could
make the same in any good family, I should have no objection to
doing it.

"Your obedient servant,

"LETITIA."

"My correspondent Letitia does not tell me," said I, "how much of this
seven or nine dollars she pays out for board and washing, fire and
lights. If she worked in a good family at two or three dollars a week,
it is easily demonstrable that, at the present cost of these items,
she would make as much clear profit as she now does at nine dollars
for her shop-work.

"And there are two other things, moreover, which she does not
consider: First, that, besides board, washing, fuel, and lights, which
she would have in a family, she would have also less unintermitted
toil. Shop-work exacts its ten hours per diem; and it makes no
allowance for sickness or accident.

"A good domestic in a good family finds many hours when she can feel
free to attend to her own affairs. Her work consists of certain
definite matters, which being done her time is her own; and if she
have skill and address in the management of her duties, she may secure
many leisure hours. As houses are now built, and with the many
labor-saving conveniences that are being introduced, the physical
labor of housework is no more than a healthy woman really needs to
keep her in health. In case, however, of those slight illnesses to
which all are more or less liable, and which, if neglected, often lead
to graver ones, the advantage is still on the side of domestic
service. In the shop and factory, every hour of unemployed time is
deducted; an illness of a day or two is an appreciable loss of just so
much money, while the expense of board is still going on. But in the
family a good servant is always considered. When ill, she is carefully
nursed as one of the family, has the family physician, and is subject
to no deduction from her wages for loss of time. I have known more
than one instance in which a valued domestic has been sent, at her
employer's expense, to the seaside or some other pleasant locality,
for change of air, when her health has been run down.

"In the second place, family work is more remunerative, even at a
lower rate of wages, than shop or factory work, because it is better
for the health. All sorts of sedentary employment, pursued by numbers
of persons together in one apartment, are more or less debilitating
and unhealthy, through foul air and confine