Chapter II: Preface: To the Second Edition

It has seemed advisable in sending out a second edition of this work to add a supplementary chapter on the condition of domestic service in Europe. This is based largely on the inquiries made in season and out of season at different times during the past ten years of heads of households and of housekeepers in England, France, Germany, and Italy. It has naturally been impossible to sum up in a single chapter the mass of information thus gleaned, but a few features common to all of these countries have been indicated, as well as some peculiar to each. The literature bearing directly on the subject is very meagre, but a few titles have been indicated.

For information bearing on this part of the work, I am under special obligation to M. Levasseur of Paris, to Miss Collet of the Labor Department of the Board of Trade, London, to Miss E. M. Hall of Rome, to Professor Victor Böhmert, recently of the Royal Statistical Bureau, Dresden, and to Mrs. J. H. W. Stuckenberg of Cambridge, recently of Berlin.

JANUARY, 1901.

CONTENTS

PAGE

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Frequency of discussion of domestic service 1
Personal character of the discussion 2
Omission of the subject from economic discussion 2
General reasons for this omission 2
Specific reasons for this omission 4
Fundamental reason for this omission 5
Can this omission be justified? 6