Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 March 1875 — Swell Servants In England. [ARTICLE]

Swell Servants In England.

Says a London correspondent of the i Cincinnati Commercial: Although all hope of recovering the jewels ol Ltidy Dudley has vanished — their real value was £30,000 —there is still a good deal of speculation about their disappearance, and a pretty general belief that some one .of his Lordship’s servants must have been at least an accomplice in the transaction. It is difficult to believe that a box of such value intrusted to the servants could have disappeared in a railway station l from unwilling hands, or that an outside ; thief could have known so*much about I the movements of the family as to have • been on the spot at the precise moment. However this may be, there is no doubt that the English nobility have a way of i employing servants which oilers grand i opportunities to rogues. In most eases . the outside of the servants is the chief j thing. If the coachman or footman is ■ good-looking in his livery and,of the re- : quired dimensions bis character is not I inquired into. A well known Duke re- ; cently advertised fpra footman of exactly five feet eleven inches in height, whose sole business it would be to stand at the back of his coach beside another . of like,stature. A youth, now in the employ of a lady of my acquaintance, ap- ! plied for the advertised position, and says that bis character was ' no’ asked _for: he was taken into the servants’ ha.l and measured, j and dismissed for lacking the half demanded by .the Duke. “ There is a passion for tallness in servants, »nd of one noble family, at least, it is a rule to admit no man servant under six feet. There are six of these eminent personages in their fine mansion. The English j servants are good-looking, neat, and constitutional flunkeys and flunkeyesses. | They are very shrewd, and have their I class rules as well defined as any trade--1 union. Powning street does not possess ; more pigeon-holes and red (ape than a ' mansion ot th’e wealthy. An upper ! house-maid would die at the stake before she would do a bit of work that came within the province of the under housemaid. A swell butler wjuld (brow up his position in the face of the Lord Chancellor himself if he were expected, to black his own boots There, afe many boys of thirteen kept in brass buttons, and in many instances the sole duty of this boy is to brush theelothes snd boots of the butler, the master of the house having his own separate valet. Of course, it is not pride which has made the in- i flexible laws of etiquette among these I

servants, by which they retuse to step buTbTan official groove or function. It; is the determination of tbeir class to preserve the conventional number of the servants required for any first-class household. Thej' particularly dislike servants from other countries, especially the Germans, because if well paid and well treated they will do anything requested of them.