THE MENIAL SLAVES OF GREAT BRITAIN.

The spirit of British institutions is nowhere more plainly and offensively manifested than in the treatment which domestic servants receive. The haughty bearing, the constant display of supreme contempt, and the frequency of downright cruelty on the part of the master or mistress, and the complete abasement and submission of the servant, have been repeatedly subjects of observation, and show clearly that the days of "lord and thrall" are vividly remembered in Great Britain. In Miss Martineau\'s "Society in America," we find some observations to the point. She says—

"However fascinating to Americans may be the luxury, conversational freedom, and high intellectual cultivation of English society, they cannot fail to be disgusted with the aristocratic insolence which is the vice of the whole. The puerile and barbaric spirit of contempt is scarcely known in America; the English insolence of class to class, of individuals toward each other, is not even conceived of, except in the one highly disgraceful instance of the treatment of people of colour. Nothing in American civilization struck me so forcibly and so pleasurably as the invariable respect paid to man, as man. Nothing since [Pg 371] my return to England has given me so much pain as the contrast there. Perhaps no Englishman can become fully aware, without going to America, of the atmosphere of insolence in which he dwells; of the taint of contempt which infects all the intercourses of his world. He cannot imagine how all he can say that is truest and best about the treatment of people of colour in America, is neutralized on the spot by its being understood how the same contempt is spread over the whole of society here, which is there concentrated upon the blacks."

It has been remarked that those who are most submissive as serfs are the most arrogant and tyrannical as lords. In Great Britain, from dukes down to workhouse officials, the truth of this remark is obvious. Each class treats its superior with abject deference, and its inferior with overbearing insolence. The corollary of our quotation from Miss Martineau is that the treatment masters give to their negro slaves in America, in their common intercourse, is what masters give to their servants in Great Britain. In the free States of America a master may command his servant, and if obedience is refused he may deduct from his wages or give him a discharge, but the laws prevent all violence; the man is never forgotten in the servant. Another state of affairs is to be found in Great Britain. The laws are inadequate in their construction and too costly in their administration to protect the poor servant. Should he refuse obedience, or irritate his master in any way, his punishment is just as likely to be kicks and blows as a discharge or a reduction of wages. Englishmen [Pg 372] have frequently complained, while doing business in the United States, because they were prevented from striking refractory persons in their employ. In attempting to act out their tyrannical ideas, such employers have been severely chastised by their free, republican servants.

What the serf of the feudal baron in the twelfth century was, the servant of modern days is, in the eyes of the lords and ladies of Great Britain. Between these aristocrats and their retainers there exists no fellow-feeling; the ties of our common brotherhood are snapped asunder, and a wide and startling gap intervenes. "Implicit obedience to commands, and a submissive, respectful demeanour on the one hand, are repaid by orders given in the most imperative tone, to perform the most degrading offices, and by a contemptuous, haughty demeanour on the other hand. In the servant the native dignity of our nature is for the time broken and crushed. In the master the worst passion of our nature is exhibited in all its hideous deformity. The spirit that dictated the expression, \'I am the porcelain, you are only the common clay,\' is not confined to the original speaker, but, with few exceptions, is very generally participated in. It is not, however, solely by the aristocratic class that the servant is treated with such contumely, the fault is largely participated in by the middle and working classes. [Pg 373] The feelings of the English people are essentially aristocratic."[100]

Until recently an order was placed at the entrance to Kensington Gardens, which read as follows:—"No Dogs or Livery Servants admitted." What more conclusive evidence of the degraded condition of menial servants in Great Britain could be obtained. A fellow-man, of good character—a necessary conclusion from his being in a situation—is placed on a level with brutes. The livery seems as much the badge of slavery in the nineteenth century as the collar of iron was in the days of baron and villain. It is a bar to the reception of a servant in any genteel society, and thus constantly reminds him of his debased condition. He can have but little hope of improving that condition, when all intercourse with persons of superior fortune or attainments is so effectually prevented. A menial he is, and menials must his children be, unless they should meet with extraordinary fortune. The following letter of a footman recently appeared in the "Times" newspaper. It is manly, and to the point.

"Many articles having appeared in your paper under the term \'Flunkeyana,\' all depreciatory of poor flunkeys, may I be allowed to claim a fair and impartial hearing on the other side? I am a footman, a liveried flunkey, a pampered menial—terms which one Christian employs to another, simply because he is, by the Almighty Dispenser of all things, placed, in his wisdom, lower [Pg 374] in life than the other. Not yet having seen any defence of servants, may I trust to your candour and your generosity to insert this humble apology for a set of men constrained by circumstances to earn their living by servitude? The present cry seems to be to lower their wages. I will state simply a few broad facts. I am a footman in a family in which I have lived thirteen years. My master deems my services worth 24 guineas a year. The question is, is this too much? I will strike the average of expenditure. I am very economical, it is considered. I find for washing I pay near ￡6 a year; shoes, ￡4 10s.; tea and sugar, ￡2 12s.; wearing apparel, ............