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Ladies in England have found that when the work in their houses is such that assistance must be had, it is better to keep an "under-servant’" for the cook (a position even less exalted than the "scullery-maid" in this complex system of domestic gradations) than to have a charwoman come occasionally. We have no special name for the "charwoman" in America, unless it be simply the generic term, "a woman," or, to be Victor Hugoish, the woman who cleans. Char (pronounced chair) is simply the old-fashioned word still popular in New England, chore, and the charwoman is merely the woman who does chores. English ladies say she does other and more objectionable things. She drinks, for instance, and finds it necessary to bring a basket with her, which, they think, would be found to be more weighty on leaving (if the matter were tested) than it is when she arrives. Another favorite plan for lightening labor, even with families who are in moderate circumstances, is to keep a "Buttons," a useful little urchin, who is forced to make himself respectable in appearance by wearing a livery provided for him, the distinguishing feature of which is its lavishness in the way of buttons. This boy is expected to do anything and everything—to clean boots, fetch coal, run errands, open the door, assist in waiting at table, rub up knives and silver; in short, to be at the beck and call of everybody in the house for each and any duty. He may be called a sort of light brigade or sharpshooter on the outposts between the heavy cavalry in the kitchen in the shape of cook and the solid infantry which moves with regular step through the housemaid's set round of duties. And whenever the wheels of a household in England are found to creak, additional help in the shape of under-servants is engaged, the matter of the efficiency of the upper-servants being of course first satisfactorily settled. Here is the very kernel of the nut of the question: this it is which makes "all the difference" between the management of a house say in New York and a similar one in London. A family without children, occupying a brown-stone front in New York, will consider that two servants should do all the work of the household, and do it well. I am not speaking of people who live on the "swell" avenues and keep carriages or give frequent balls and parties: I mean unpretending people who own or rent a nice three- or four-story house, and want to live with entire comfort and freedom from rows or disputes with servants, and expect to be well waited on. They engage cook and chambermaid—the chambermaid to act also as waitress, both to act as laundresses. High wages are given, and when the work is done unsatisfactorily more money is offered as a bribe, or else there are disagreeable scenes, ending with the lady saying hotly, "Well, if you can’t do my work, I'll find some one else who can." But she is mistaken. She will never find two women who can cook, wash, iron, clean, dust, wait at table and do the work generally of a three- or four-story house as it should be done. In a household of that importance in England there would be hired, at the least, cook and under-servant, housemaid and Buttons, and all the laundry-work put out.

And oh how smoothly life passes in such an English home! How brightly every inch of brass shines! how well dusted is every article you touch! how clear is the crystal for table use! how spotless the napery! how noiselessly your servants move about! how respectfully each addresses the heads of the household whenever required to do so, not otherwise! It is the very perfection of service, and a luxurious satisfaction which we in America rarely get a chance to enjoy. But the times are changing now. [t may be possible that in the future the demand-and-supply market for domestic service may have so settled itself that for the money we have hitherto paid as yearly wages to two only tolerable servants we shall obtain the services of as many efficient ones as are needful to make our American homes the equal of those in England for the quiet perfection of their interior management.