Indentured servant

“ And servants may break the eighth commandment, “Thou shalt not steal,” in many ways besides actually taking what does not belong to them. A servant has many things under her care. If therefore she indulges in dirty and careless habits, she injures her master’s property, and is in this respect dishonest. ”

“ If a Servant, retained for a year, happen within the period of his service to fall sick, or to be hurt or lamed, or otherwise to become of infirm body by the act of God, while doing his master's business, the master cannot put such servant away, nor abate any part of his wages for such time. ”

“ The servant's dependent and inferior position is to be taken into consideration; and if the master gives him positive orders to go on with the work, under perilous circumstances, the servant may recover for an injury thus incurred, if the work was not inevitably and imminently dangerous.' Williams v. ”

“ A yearly Servant cannot be discharged for any act of God.
A master cannot discharge his yearly servant within the year, by reason of illness, or of any hurt by which he may be disabled from doing his usual business, nor even for insanity, without an order from a justice; nor can his wages be abated for such reason.
A Servant may be discharged by a Justice if his Wages be not paid, or sufficient Maintenance be denied him.
The master detaining a servant’s wages, or not allowing [11] him sufficient meat and drink, or otherwise ill-treating him, is a good cause for a servant’s leaving his place ”

“ If a servant, lastly, by his negligence does any damage to a stranger, the master shall answer for his neglect: if a smith's servant lames a horse while he is shoing him, an action lies against the master, and not against the servant. ”

“ If any person shall falsely personate any master or mistress, or his or her representative, and shall either verbally or in writing, give a false, forged, or counterfeit character to any person, offering him or herself to be hired as a servant ”

“ To this we may add, that the illustrations drawn from the condition and service of servants and the ideas which the term servant is employed to convey when applied figuratively to moral subjects would, in most instances, lose all their force, and often become absurdities if the will of the servant resisted his service, and he performed it only by compulsion. Many passages will at once occur to those who are familiar with the Bible. We give a single example. "To whom YE YIELD YOURSELVES servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey." ”

“ Remember this, you ladies and gentle men who are sometimes so harsh with your servants and treat them like slaves, storming at and cursing them if they happen to commit the least fault, and refusing them the necessary care and nourishment if ill-health renders them unable to attend to their duties. Say to yourselves: on that day my servant shall stand in the same rank with me, and then shall be seen which of us is to be the master, which the servant; which is to be the lady, and which the humble handmaid. ”

“ A servant, you say. Then you should speak and act as one. No, Glory! you know you are not, and cannot be, a servant. You shall be its mistress. I forgive you what you have done, for you are asserting your place and authority. ”

“ This subjection they owe to their masters, who have a right to their service; and that not only to the good and gentle, such as use them well and abate somewhat of their right, but even to the crooked and perverse, who are scarcely to be pleased at all. Learn, (1.) Servants ought to behave themselves to their masters with submission, and fear of displeasing them. (2.) The sinful misconduct of one relation does not justify the sinful behaviour of the other; the servant is bound to do his duty, though the master be sinfully froward and perverse. ”

“ Some thoroughly good servant, who has made sacrifices to forward his employer’s interest, is at last, through no offence of his own, found to be in his employer’s way, and at once all old services are forgotten, all old ties broken, and the authority of the employer, legal but inhuman, is exercised. ”

“ No servant ever left her service who deserved to remain in it. And, as she could choose with a glance of her eye, the servants she selected did in almost all cases deserve to remain, and they did remain. ”

“ If I behave improperly to servants, I am really their inferior, as I abuse a trust, and imitate not the Being, whose servant I am, without a shadow of equality. Children are helpless. I order my servants to wait on you, because you are so; but I have not as much respect for you as for them; you may possibly become a virtuous character.—Many of my servants are really so already; they have done their duty, filled an humble station, as they ought to fill it, conscientiously. And do you dare to despise those whom your Creator approves? ”

“ Indemnity of Servant.—A master is bound to indemnify his servant against the direct, but not indirect, consequences of any act done by him in pursuance of the master's orders, provided that the act itself was not one which the servant knew, or must be presumed to have known, was illegal or unlawful. ”

“ That where the act is one done in the discharge of a positive duty of the master, negligence in the performance of the act, however occasioned, is the act of the master, and not the act of a fellow servant. ”

“ Exceedingly wonderful would it be if service was withdrawn from an earthly king by all good servants on account of one of the servants who was opposed to him. And especially wonderful would this be if, on account of one that was a good and faithful servant of the king, a vassal, wishing to bend him to his own will, should interdict all the king's servants to do ministry to the king himself. ”

“ But you will say, we desire some reason of this inequality from, whom? from God? To whom alone it is lawful to do whatsoever he pleases, and who is pleased to do nothing but what is lawful? Shall a Servant call his Master ”

“ If you had a servant who had been faithful to you during his whole life, with whose services you were not able to dispense, while he could at any time find a better master—yet if he should only for a single day disobey your orders, you would get angry, beat him, and wish to get rid of him. ”

“ But the law is that where a servant is guilty of conduct which is inconsistent with the true and faithful discharge of his or her service, the master has a right of instant dismissal. Immorality, drunkenness, gross impertinence, disobedience, dishonesty of course, or incompetence to do the work contracted to be done, are all facts which may justify the master. ”

“ There are, as these unhappy Correspondents inform me, Masters who are offended at a chearful Countenance, and think a Servant is broke loose from them, if he does not preserve the utmost Awe in their Presence. There is one who says, if he looks satisfied, his Master asks him what makes him so pert this Morning; if a little sour, Hark ye, Sirrah, are not you paid your Wages? The poor Creatures live in the most extreme Misery together: The Master knows not how to preserve Respect, nor the Servant how to give it. ”

“ Only a scanty extract must be given.
[310]
"When your master or lady calls a servant by name, if that servant be not in the way, none of you are to answer, for then there will be no end of your drudgery.
"When you have done a fault be always pert and insolent, and behave yourself as if you were the injured person.
"The cook, the butler, the groom, and every other servant should act as if his master's whole estate ought to be applied to that particular servant's business.
"Take all tradesmen's parts against your master. ”

“ Wrongful interception of servantship. Wrongful divestment of servantship. Usurpation of servantship. Wrongful investment of servantship. Wrongful abdication of servantship. Wrongful detrectation of servantship. Wrongful imposition of servantship. Abuse of mastership. Disturbance of mastership. Breach of duty in servants. Elopement of servants. Servant-stealing. XLIV. We now come to the offences to which the condition of of a guardian is exposed. A guardian is one who is invested with power over another, living within the compass of the same family, and called a ward ”

“ I must admit, however, that I was frequently obliged to address him more sharply than one should ever address one's servant, my theory having always been that a serving person should be treated quite as if he were a gentleman temporarily performing menial duties, but there was that strain of lowness in all the Hobbses which often forbade this, a blending of servility with more or less skilfully dissembled impertinence, which I dare say is the distinguishing mark of our lower-class serving people. ”

“ And in regard to his statement, that men suffer injury when the servant of one man enters the service of a second master, the question arises: “What is the nature of the injury which is done to the former master by a servant who, while serving him, wishes at the same time to serve another?” ”

“ I do not know that it is necessary to define or describe a servant. Shortly, the relation of master and servant exists where the master can not only order the work, but how it shall be done. When the person to do the work may do it as he pleases, then such person is not a servant. Next, the servant must be acting within the scope of his employment. If my coachman takes my carriage and horses to give his wife a ride and is guilty of negligence causing damage, I am not liable. ”

“ Tell me, if thou hadst a servant, who should neither steal, nor insult, nor contradict thee, who moreover should keep from drunkenness and every other kind of vice, and yet should sit perpetually in idleness, and not doing one of those duties which a servant owes to his master, wouldest thou not chastise him, wouldest thou not put him to the rack? ”

“ Such persons being out of service, and not having visible means of their own, to maintain themselves without their labour, and refusing to serve as a hired servant, by the yeer, may be bound over to the next Sessions or Assises, and to be of good behaviour in the mean time, or may be sent to the house of correction. ”

“ A servant cannot be made answerable to his master for any loss that may happen without his wilful neglect; but if he be guilty of fraud or gross negligence, an action will lie against him by his master. Therefore, if a master give money or other thing to a servant to carry to a certain place, and he is robbed, the servant is not answerable.—But if it be lost through his neglect he is punishable. ”

“ We shall find the best and simplest illustration of the relations of master and operative in the position of domestic servants.
We will suppose that the master of a household desires only to get as much work out of his servants as he can, at the rate of wages he gives. He never allows them to be idle; feeds them as poorly and lodges them as ill as they will endure, and in all things pushes his requirements to the exact point beyond which he cannot go without forcing the servant to leave him. In doing this, there is no violation on his part of what is commonly called "justice." ”

“ The direct neglect of orders is unpardonable in an intelligent servant who has been well trained, and will not occur, even in the absence of the mistress, if the training has been explicit and complete and the servant is honorable,—as he should be in order to retain any position. ”

“ What the evil servant says and does, shows most clearly the position and work of the faithful and wise servant. The evil servant says, “My lord delayeth his coming,” because the faithful servant is proclaiming the coming of his lord. ”

“ Servants' sympathies are with their equals. They feel for a poor servant run off his legs, and moped to death; they have no feeling for a painstaking mistress, economical both from principle and scanty means ”

“ Offices ministerial belong to the part of a servant. Now, since it is the mind, and not the condition of a person, that prints the value upon the benefit, a servant may oblige his master, and so may a subject his sovereign, or a common soldier his general, by doing more than he is expressly bound to do. Some things there are, which the law neither commands nor forbids; and here the servant is free. It would be very hard for a servant to be chastised for doing less than his duty, and not thanked for it when he does more. ”

“ Such is the nature of the occupation, and such its sphere, that the servant is necessarily far and long removed from the master’s inspection, and if suspicion should arise, proof of unfaithfulness could hardly be brought home to the accused. ”

“ Servants are under obligation to obey their masters: “Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart as unto Christ.” Eph. 6:5. The servant's service to his master should not be wholly for the hire. He should not fear to do him ill service because of not receiving his wages, but his service should be in singleness of heart—an honest, upright purpose—as unto Christ. ”

“ If a servant assault his master or mistress, or any other person having charge over him, he may be bound to his good behaviour; or be committed to prison, for a year or less, at the discretion of two magistrates.
Agreement by a Servant under age not to operate against him.
No agreement made by a servant, with his master, whilst he is under the age of 21 years, can be made to operate against him.
A married Woman must serve her term.
A woman who is married, or shall marry during her servitude, must, in either case, serve out her time; nor can her husband take her out of her master’s service. ”

“ The servant is now become the master. The magistrate was then subservient to the people: punishments and rewards were properties of the people: all honours, dignities, and preferments were disposed by the voice and favour of the people. ”