Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 100, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 April 1910 — SERVANT PROBLEM IN AFRICA [ARTICLE]

SERVANT PROBLEM IN AFRICA

Servitor* Are All Mem and Are the Dirtiest la the World. Servants are an absolute necessity in Africa, declares a writer in the Delineator. But next to the climate and the insects, the native servants are the greatest pests. Even the best of them are the worst imaginable. They delight in grease, rags and dirt. They never do anything If they can avoid it. Servants are air of the male gender. They are engaged by the month and paid in cash or merchandise, at their option. The principal servants are cook, house boy, small boy, jack wash and head man. I was very fortunate In getting one. His wages were $5 a month, cash, and all he could steal. He dressed in an undershirt and Jhe cast-off trousers of some white man. At the end of the month, when he received his wages, most of it went for rum and anisette bought at the factory. When the money was gone he tapped a palm tree and drank of Its fermented juice. No matter how intoxicated he became his meals were always on time and he was polite and deferential. He called me Missy. Because we both spoke English and he was a British subject, he looked after me In a way. He Instructed the bushmeu how to act and dress before a white woman. He warned me when there was any mischief brewing, and when he got Into trouble, which was very frequently, he looked to me for aid. But he never forgot his position. He was small, slight, S 3 years of age, could read and write and sing Moody and Sankey hymns. He came into my employ the day I landed in tho bush and left me when I took tho steamer at the coast to return to civilization. On the march he was tho first to start away with the eooking kit on his head: upon my arrival in camp he met me with hot coffee. No matter how discouraging the conditions, he was faithful. Had I raked all Africa I could not have found a more faithful servant. Only those who have lived In the bush can appreciate such a one. If native cooks do not like their masters they have a habit of feeding him slow poison. Many i white man makes bis cook first partake of the food. When a girl gets her first letter from s man she keeps the envelope stuck in her mirror frame tor six months.