can help it — I suggest the question. Britons
are very free, but need they be so very easy
too?

SMALL-BEER CHRONICLES

In Number 196 of this periodical, page 474
of the present volume, it was the painful duty
of the Small-Beer Chronicler to call attention
to the deplorable helplessness of masters
and customers in their dealings with servants
and tradespeople. The immense disadvantage
we are at, was indicated, and an indignant
protest was entered against a system which leaves
us exposed to much cheating and imposition. I
am happy to find that that cry of misery has
awakened an echo in other breasts. The same
system of swindling is carried on upon the
other side of the Channel. In the course of
a certain French trial, which took place quite
recently, some particulars came out, bearing so
remarkably upon the matter in hand, that I will
venture to translate them, literally, for the
reader's benefit:

"What," says the writer in the French journal,
from which I quote — "what was the domestic
servant of former times? Generally speaking,
she came up from the country, young, steady,
ignorant, and a kind of treaty or agreement
was entered into between her and her
employer, something of this sort: ' In your
native village you were accustomed to eat black
bread, you were overwhelmed with work
naturally repugnant to you; you were alternately
frozen with cold and scorched with heat, and
you were in the habit of sleeping on a sorry
straw mattress. Come from your village to
Paris, and we will give you white bread; you
shall share our table, and our dwelling; you
shall form one of our household; and at our
death we will leave you a provision for the
remainder of your days.'

"We leave it to a certain lady, called as
witness in a case tried before the Tribunal
Correctional, to tell us what the domestic servant of
our day is like.

"THE LADY. ' During a period of six months
I have had four servants, and I am now looking out
for a fifth, without the least hope of finding one
who will suit me better than the others. It is
not that the servants were unsuitable when they
first came to my place, for I had taken the
precaution of getting them in every case from the
country, and of convincing myself of their
honesty and good behaviour; but in the house
in which I live, there is a servant on the first
floor who has taken upon herself the task of
forming all the servants in the neighbourhood.
Not satisfied with giving them her advice by
word of mouth, this person hands them a written
programme. And a copy of that programme,
found in the apartment of iny domestic, I now
hand into court.

"' PROGRAMME.

"' The masters are no better than we are.
They pay us, and we serve them: we are quits.

' We only owe our service to our masters;
that service done, our time is our own property;
a servant should always reserve to herself two
hours in the course of the day, between breakfast
and dinner, and the right to absent herself
for twenty-four hours once every fortnight.

"' More than this, a servant who has any self-
respect ought: 1. To go to market unaccompanied
by her mistress; 2. Not to demean
herself by scrubbing or polishing; 3. She should
not permit any interference with her affairs or
her dress; 4. She should receive in her kitchen
any one she thinks proper to receive; 5. She
should not allow any notice to be taken of her
letters; 6. She should wear crinoline, a long
shawl, and a bonnet; 7. She should demand an
increase of wages every three months; 8. She
should require leave of absence for a fortnight
twice in the course of every year, ostensibly in
order to visit her relations; 9. She should leave
any place in which it was not the custom to make
presents at the end of two months' service.'

"' This programme,' continued the lady,
'has explained to me the conduct of my four
last servants. Hardly had they been with
me a fortnight, when I ceased to recognise
them as the same persons, either in their
conduct or their mode of speaking. Every one of
them made it a study to carry out the injunctions
contained in the programme. This last
one especially, Marie Gagneur, made it a matter
of pride to obey it. Accordingly, one day when
I had gone out after breakfast, and only returned
at five o'clock, I found that Marie was not in
the house. In the course of the afternoon she
returns, and when I ask her where she has been,
she replies: " Madame is not ignorant that two
hours, of which I owe an account to nobody, are
my right in the course of every day."

"' On another occasion, when my husband was
annoyed at seeing her doing her work in a crinoline,
banging it against the furniture, upsetting
the chairs, and dragging the tablecloth and the
curtains about, in consequence of its amplitude,
her reply to his remonstrance was: " My crinoline
is not a bit larger than madame's." '

"THE PRESIDENT. 'All that you say, madame,
is not without its importance, in a certain point
of view; but still these things do not amount
to crimes. Marie Gagneur is accused of theft,
at your expense. Tell us what she has robbed
you of?

"THE LADY. ' She has done what many others
have done, only on a larger scale. She has
purchased coals, fruit, vegetables, and meat, charging
me double for what she paid for these articles,
or, on returning from making her purchases,
she has given away or sold a portion of them.
My fruiterer, my grocer, and my butcher may
be called as witnesses, and will prove these facts
to your satisfaction.'

"The witnesses were heard, the crime was
proved against the prisoner, and she was
sentenced to be imprisoned for the space of two
months."

What is to become of us? The picture of