Etiquette and English Maids in America

The English maid’s cap has ceased to be sine qua non of the English maid which it is regarded on this side of the water.
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The maid’s cap has got into the English courts. A servant sued her employer for wages after dismissal, because she would not wear caps. They learned Q.C. admitted that the subject was a very delicate one, and seemed to be ever a cause of complaint between mistresses and maids. It was finally decided that the refusal to wear caps per se was not sufficient ground to discharge a servant out of time. The particular case in question took on some other phases, but this part of the decision implies, by inference, that the cap has ceased to be sine qua non of the English maid which it is regarded on this side of the water.

It is certain, as many housekeepers will testify, that the English maid, supposedly admirably trained and accustomed to service, gives more trouble on American soil than servants of other nationalities. She exaggerates the freedom of America, and takes not only liberty but license without restraint. Such of them as serve in the houses of our very rich countrymen are not open to this criticism; they are clever enough to show a deference to the wealth about them, if they do not feel it, but those English maids that drift into the average American household are, for the most part, intolerable in speech and manner. —The New York Times, 1895

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