With the means at hand this need not be.
It is one of the legacies which have come down to us, and which we have connected with the servant problem.

The work in the most modern apartments does not require the soiling of the hands in a serious way.

With hard wood floors, bright gas-stoves, porcelain lined dishes, no pots and kettles, all the stairs, halls, etc., cared for by the janitor, the work is of a far less smutting kind than in the suburban house, where there is still need for much cleaning up of a roughening sort which cannot be escaped.
This has more to do than we are apt to think with the distaste for the country, unless several servants are kept, some for this work only.

In the old type of city house the travel up-and down-stairs to answer bell and telephone has demanded strength of back not possessed by the modern maid.
The house is not yet adapted to the new demands of the workers, and they shun it.

The mistress herself finds it beyond her strength, even if the traces of rough work were not quite so distasteful to her.
Miss Pettengill in her story of domestic service brings out the great part played by sooty dust, sifting in even through closed windows, in the burden of the waitress who is expected to keep the dining-room immaculate.
This is only one instance where the blame really belongs on the actual material house rather than on the mistress, except that she does not discover a remedy, does not even know where to look for the cause.