or the knowledge of household work which they
acquire in service. They might as well preach to the winds; and there are
more applications for employment in shops and factories than there is
work for, whilst mistresses go begging for lady-helps. There is a sad
side to this picture as regards the social condition of the colonies, in
addition to the inconvenience to people who keep servants. The girls who
go into shops and factories, and have their evenings to themselves,
necessarily undergo a great deal of temptation, and it is undeniable that
they are not at all delivered from evil. The subject is out of keeping
with these letters, but unless some means can be found to reconcile
colonial girls to service, I fear an evil is growing up in our midst
which is likely to be even more baneful in its effects upon the community
than the corresponding tendency to 'larrikinism' amongst colonial youths.

Since writing the above, an article on the subject has appeared in the
Melbourne _Argus_ which is worth quoting in _extenso_:

'We have undertaken to consider whether anything can be done to overcome
the unwillingness which nearly all Australian girls exhibit to enter
domestic service. There is an abundant supply of female labour in the
colony, but unfortunately it is not distributed in the way that would be
most advantageous to the community and beneficial to the women
themselves. While household servants can scarcely be had for love or
money, the clothing factories are crowded with seamstresses, who are
content to work long hours at what are very much like starvation wages.
How is this? We have shown that there is nothing in domestic work which
any true woman need consider degrading; that the most refined and highly
educated ladies have in all ages considered themselves properly employed
when busy about household affairs; that servants have quite as many
opportunities of forming matrimonial connections as factory girls, and
that their training fits them to become much better, and therefore far
happier wives. We have no doubt that all this, or at least the greater
part, would be admitted by the seamstresses themselves: but nevertheless
the fact remains that to domestic service they will not go. There is a
feeling in existence amongst them that in some way or other household
labour is menial occupation, and that to undertake it is to lose caste in
the class to which they belong. We may call this fantastic idea "vanity"
or "false pri