Home and Abroad - An Autobiography of an Octogenarian #247687

On the dear old banks of the Lower Green, I recollect picking cowslips, whilst the family nurse would sit with her knitting. Gardeners were gardeners in those days. They worked early and late, their energies being only restricted by bad weather. Trade unions with all their tyrannical and arbitrary laws were unknown, wages were less than half what they are now, and the household work and duties more than double. All the modern schemes and contributions to the saving of labour were undreamt of, and instead of the general all pervading spirit of unrest, more especially among the household domestics, happiness and contentment prevailed. There were no servants' registry offices and changes rarely took place, no domestics ever dreaming of changing except through marriage, when the family took as much interest in the happy event as the relations of the domestics themselves. In most cases they were married from the house where they had served the family from girlhood. Yet there was not a servile spirit about the village, all were free and happy.