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A tea served nearer to six o'clock would be a high tea, with the heavier dishes served making this more o f a meal than a light, reviving snack. High tea is commonly mistaken for being somehow grander than afternoon tea service, but its origins are humble and it was never, in England, considered a fashionable meal. W h e n laborers and factory workers arrived h o m e from work at five or six o'clock, it was still too early for dinner, which during the nineteenth century was usually served at seven or eight o'clock.

Heavier puddings calling for suet could be formed into small cakes and fried in butter as an alternative to boiling. Batter puddings, such as Yorkshire pudding, only b e c a m e widely known in the eighteenth century and were either baked in an oven or cooked under the spit in the drippings that fell from the j o i n t o f meat as it cooked. Another eighteenth-century innovation was rice pudding, made by tying up rice and raisins or currants in a pudding cloth and boiling this in water until the rice had swelled, whereafter it was served with melted butter and sugar.

A number o f these early agencies printed advertisements that listed available servants, though this practice died out as newspaper distribution increased. Not all o f these agencies were honestly run, and they soon gained a reputa­ tion for taking advantage o f servants by charging them fees up front a n d l a t e r f a i l i n g to f i n d t h e m p o s i t i o n s o r a r r a n g e for a s i n g l e interview. Word o f mouth was another effective way in which a position might be applied for: Indeed, it might have been the most commonly used.