ABSTRACT
Gouge enjoins masters to make no inordinately high demand on their servants and not to endanger their health by putting over-heavy burdens upon them or injure them by subjecting them to bad conditions of work. The skill they displayed in applying the grand idea of freedom, of which they had heard so much, to their own affairs was sufficient to evoke many a sigh from their masters. The prevailing circumstances, as far as servants were concerned, were essentially patriarchal. An old proverb speaks of England as being a paradise for women, but in the same breath describes it as hell for horses and purgatory for servants. Perhaps it was for this very reason that the Puritans laid down precise rules governing their treatment. As in marriage the duties of husband and wife cut across each other, so here in many matters both master and servant are each held to have their own responsibilities.
