uld air their eloquence in the columns of great newspapers.
Some time ago there was a case in which a perfectly rich shrew went
away from home from Saturday morning till Monday night, leaving one
shilling to provide all food for two young women. This person of
course needed fresh servants every month, and was no doubt surprised
at the ingratitude of the starvelings who perpetually left her. I call
up memories of homes, refuges, emigration-agencies, and so forth, and
do most sternly and bitterly blame the mean shrew for mischief which
well-nigh passes credence. There is nothing more delightful than to
watch the dexterous, healthy, cheerful maids in well-ordered
households where the mistress is the mother; but there is very little
of the mother about the mean shrew--she is rather more like the
slave-driver. "Stinted means," observes some tender apologist. What
ineffable rubbish! If a woman is married to a man of limited means,
does that give her any right to starve and bully a fellow-creature?
How many brave women have done all necessary housework and despised
ignoble "gentility"! No, I cannot quite accept the "stinted means"
excuse; the fact is that the mean shrew is hard on her dependants
solely because her nature is not good; and we need not beat about the
bush any longer for reasons. A domestic servant under a wise,
dignified, and kind mistress or housekeeper may live a healthy and
happy life; the servant of the mean shrew does not live at all in any
true sense of the word. No rational man can blame girls for preferring
the freedom of shop or factory to the thraldom of certain kinds of
domestic service. If we consider only the case of well-managed houses,
then we may wonder why any girl should enter a factory; but, on the
other hand, there is that dire vision of the mean shrew with gimlet
eye and bitter tongue! What would the mean shrew have made of Margaret
Catchpole, the Suffolk girl who was transported about one hundred
years ago? There is a problem. That girl's letters to her mistress are
simply throbbing with passionate love and gratitude; and the phrases
"My beloved mistress," "My dear, dear mistress," recur like sobs.
Margaret would have become a fiend under the mean shrew; but the holy
influence of a good lady made a noble woman of her, and she became a
pattern of goodness long after one rash but blameless freak was
forgotten. All Margaret's race now rise up and call her blessed, and
her spirit must have rejoic