may be included policemen, for they are civil soldiers, though seldom more civil than soldiers. Neither of the above can, while they are in the service of Her Majesty, serve any other person, unless it be some superior officer in the same corps or regiment as themselves, and then only by leave. A soldier, sailor, or policeman is none the less a citizen, and he has the same rights and liberties as other citizens, and he cannot be refused admission to a place where other people are admitted because he is a soldier and is in uniform. When a person receives enlistment-money from an officer or recruiting-sergeant he is declared duly enlisted, and, having enlisted, he is not bound by any contract of service, or liable for leaving his employer without notice, nor is he liable to be arrested for any debt under thirty pounds, nor to be prosecuted for civil offences, unless it be on a charge of felony or misdemeanour; but a person may be proceeded against if he deserts his wife or children and enlists. The service, however, of soldiers and sailors and policemen is so completely regulated by the Mutiny and other Acts, and so few soldiers or sailors would have recourse to such a book as this to know their duties, that we need not dwell further upon it here. Labourers. This class will include all those who, without using anything more than ordinary intelligence, do manual labour for wages. They are hired by the week, and sometimes by the day, and therefore a week's notice or wages, or a day's notice or wages, will terminate a contract of service with a labourer. It is provided by Act of Parliament that, if a servant in husbandry, handicraftsman, artificer, calico printer, miner, collier, keelman, pitman, glassman, potter, labourer, or other person, contracts in writing to serve and does not enter into such service, or absents himself before the term of his contract be expired (whether such contract be in writing or not), or is guilty of any misconduct or misdemeanour, he may be committed to the House of Correction to hard labour for not exceeding three months, or in lieu thereof the whole, or a proportionate part, of his wages may be abated, or he may be discharged from his contract or employment. There are in certain counties in England persons known as gangmasters, who hire children and women with a view to contract with farmers and others for the execution of agricultural work. The following are the regulations laid down with respect to such persons-First, no child under the age of eight years shall be employed in any agricultural gang; secondly, no females shall be employed in the same agricultural gang with males; thirdly, no female shall be employed in any gang, under any male gangmaster, unless a female licensed to act as gangmaster is also present with that gang. Any gangmaster employing any child, young person, or woman in contravention of this, and any occupier of land on which such employment takes place, unless he proves that it took place without his knowledge, shall respectively be liable to a penalty not exceeding twenty shillings for each child, young person, or woman so employed. The above persons are servants, and to them this little volume is supposed to, and in nearly all cases will, apply; but there are some others to whom it will also apply, although they are not in reality servants. Apprentices are, to a certain extent, servants; but the relation between master and apprentice resembles, in its rights and duties, rather those of parent and child than master and servant. The master is entitled to the whole produce of the labour of his apprentice, and in case of disobedience to his lawful demands, or other improper conduct, he may inflict reasonable corporal chastisement upon him. The contract between an apprentice and his master must be by deed, and it can only be put an end to in the following cases:— 1. By the expiration of the term for which the apprentice was bound. But if the apprentice has absented himself from his master's service, courts of summary jurisdiction are empowered to order him to serve out the absent time, or make satisfaction for it, and in default to commit him to prison. But if the apprentice has served seven years he cannot be compelled to serve longer. 2. By the mutual consent of all the parties to the indenture of apprenticeship it may be cancelled or given up, and there is then an end of the apprenticeship. 3. By the death either of the master or apprentice, the interest, being a mere personal trust, is determined. But if the master covenant to find the apprentice during the term in necessaries and clothing the death of the master will not determine that obligation, and his executors will be bound to perform it as far as they have assets. 4. The bankruptcy of the master dissolves the apprenticeship, and if any sum has been paid by or on behalf of such apprentice to the bankrupt, as an apprentice fee, the Court may order it, or part thereof, to be returned to the apprentice out of the bankrupt's estate, regard being had to the time during which such apprentice has resided with or served the bankrupt. Generally speaking, the laws concerning the master and servant will apply equally to the master and apprentice, particularly as to theft and embezzlement; but the master cannot discharge the apprentice, nor can the apprentice leave his master's service, except in certain cases; and the master is bound to take more care of the bodily wants of his apprentice than of his servant or workman. But this brings us to our next chapter-the duties of a master towards his servants. CHAPTER V. DUTIES OF MASTER. Showing how far the master is bound to take his servant into his servant. THE first. duty of the master towards the servant is to receive hin into his service, and if he refuse to take him after he has agreed to do so, without any good reason for such refusal, the servant may bring an action against him for breach of contract. To bring such an action successfully it will be necessary to prove that there existed a contract of hiring, valid in law, which was broken by the refusal to take the servant; and it must be shown that the master had no good grounds for making such refusal; for if the master discovers something that would be a sufficient reason for discharging that servant, if he had been in his service, he may, on the same ground, legally refuse to allow him to enter his service. Such an action as this may be brought directly the master announces his intention to break his part of the contract, for the man who wrongfully renounces a contract into which he has deliberately entered cannot justly complain if he is immediately sued for compensation in damages by the man he has injured; and it seems reasonable to allow an option to the injured party either to sue immediately, or to wait till the time when the act was to be done, still holding it as prospectively binding for the exercise of this option, which may be advantageous to the innocent party and cannot be prejudicial to the wrongdoer. But if the servant do not act upon the master's announced renunciation of the contract, and before the day arrives for the commencement of the service becomes incompetent or unable to perform his part of it, the master will be at liberty to avail himself of these circumstances to rescind the contract, and cannot afterwards be sued for it. So that if a gentleman engage in April a courier to accompany him on a trip through Europe for three months from the 1st of June, and in May changes his mind and declines the courier's services, the courier may bring an action against him for damages, although he afterwards, and before the 1st of June, obtain an equally good engagement: but if he obtain the second engagement before he has brought his action he cannot then bring it. It is another duty of the master to retain the servant in his service during the whole time that he has agreed to do so; but the master cannot be compelled so to retain him, for this reason—that it would be impossible for a master and servant, or an employer and his clerk or workman, to go on in the intimate connection which such a contract is calculated to create were he obliged to retain the servant, though he was dissatisfied with his work. They would be possibly on the same premises, acting in the management of the same business, and if there is mutual dissatisfaction, whether well or ill-founded, it is clear that a management, conducted under such circumstances, would tend very much to the prejudice of the concern. A judge, in giving judgment in a case of this kind, said: "We are asked to compel one person to employ, against his will, another as his confidential servant, for duties with respect to the due performance of which the utmost confidence is required. Let him be one of the best and most competent persons that ever lived, still, if the two do not agree-and good people do not always agree-enormous mischief may be done. A man may have one of the best domestic servants-he may have a valet whose arrangement of clothes is faultless, a coachman whose driving is excellent, a cook whose performances are perfect—and yet he may not have confidence in them; and while on the one hand all that the servant requires or wishes (and that reasonably enough) is money, you are, on the other hand, to destroy the comfort of a man's existence for a period of years by compelling him to have constantly about |