1-150-396 - The Cartoon Collector/Heritage-Images

'What Will Become of the Servant-Gals?', 1865. The lady of the house shows a benevolent gentleman visitor where her housemaid sleeps. This appears to be an outhouse, damp and dirty. This was a period during which the newly burgeoning middle classes had few problems in engaging servants. For the uneducated lower classes, especially girls, there were few alternatives to domestic service. Consequently, the conditions attached to service were often less than equitable. From Punch, or the London Charivari, July 8, 1865.