every new domestic
you engage. They are so plainly just and reasonable that the most
captious servant cannot take exception to them as a matter of principle.
It must depend upon your persevering spirit and firm hand that they do
not fail in practice. First, you should tell your servant that,
employing them at a stipulated rate of wages, to do certain, work,
_their time belongs to you_. Tell them that you insist upon their being
absolutely under your direction and control, that you expect to grant
them all reasonable privileges, but that they must be regarded _as
privileges_, and not as _rights_. Tell them distinctly that, if you
prefer to keep your stores under lock and key, it is not because you
suspect their integrity, but because you consider it as your business as
a housekeeper to know what is the cost of your living. Tell them that
you are in the habit of keeping an accurate account of your expenses,
and that, in consequence, it is necessary that you should know of every
cent that is expended. If these facts are clearly made known and
consistently acted upon, much of the trouble of managing servants is
done away with.

Although the plan of keeping a book of family accounts only belongs
incidentally to the main subject under discussion, it is so important
that I cannot refrain from a more special mention of it than is given
above. It is the simplest thing in the world, not taking more than ten
minutes on an average every day. For reference, in case of a disputed
bill, it is invaluable, while its influence in keeping down expenses is
wonderfully wholesome.

If the affairs of a family are to be conducted on business principles,
the family account book cannot be neglected. It would be just as safe
and sensible for the merchant to neglect _his_ cash book, as for his
domestic partner, who undertakes to do her business properly, to fail to
keep _her_ cash book.

One of the regulations which is proposed posed above as part of the
system of family management is, in my judgment, as important in its
bearing upon the honesty of the servant as it is upon the question of
economy. I refer to the keeping the family stores under the immediate
care of the housekeeper. It is nothing to the discredit of servants that
this is said. More people are honest _through circumstances_ than is
generally supposed. Many a servant is tempted into habits of pilfering
by the free and unquestioned access she has to the family stores. I have
befo