SERVANT, one who has contracted to serve another. The person whom he has contracted to serve is styled master. Servants are of various kinds : apprentices [APPRENTicx], domestic servants who re side within the house of the master, ser vants in husbandry, workmen or artificers, and clerks, warehousemen, &c. From the relation of master and servant a va riety of rights and duties arise, some of which are founded on the common law, and some on statute.
A contract of hiring and service need not be in writing unless it be for a period longer than a year, or for a year to com mence at some future time. If in writing, it is not liable to any stamp duty, unless it apply to the superior classes of clerks, &c. All such contracts imply an under taking on the part of the servant faith fully to serve the master, and to do his lawful and reasonable commands within the range of the employment contracted for ; on the part of the master, to protect the servant and pay him his hire or wages. In all hirings where no time is expressed, except those of domestic ser vants, it is a rule of law that the contract shall continue for a year. In the case of domestic servants it is determinable by a month's warning, or the payment of a month's wages. Servants in husbandry can only be discharged or quit the service upon a quarter's notice. This rule as to time may of course be rebutted by any circumstances in the contract inconsistent with its existence. In the case of immo rality, or any kind of offence amounting to a misdemeanor committed during the time of the service, or of continued neg lect, or determined disobedience, a servant may be immediately discharged. If the servant is a domestic, he is nevertheless entitled to wages for the time during which he has served. But in other cases, where the contract is entire for a year, the wages cannot be apportioned, and the service having been determined before the expiration of the time contracted for, in consequence of the fault of the servant, he is not entitled to claim wages for any portion of the time during which he has served. The contract still continues to exist, notwithstanding the disability of the servant to perform his duties from illness, and be is therefore still entitled to receive his wages. The master, however, is not bound to pay the charges incurred by medicine or attendance upon his sick servant. In case the goods of the master
are lost or broken by the carelessness of the servant, the master is not entitled to deduct their value from the wages of the servant, unless there has been a contract between them to that effect. His only remedy is by an action at law against the servant. Where a master becomes bank rupt, the commissioners are authorised, on proof that they are due, to pay six months' wages to his clerks and servants. If the wages for any longer period are due, they must be proved like other debts under the fiat. If a servant has left his service for a considerable time without making any demand for wages, it will be presumed that they are paid. A master may chastise his apprentice for neglect or misconduct, but he will not be justified in striking any other description of ser vant. Servants who steal or embezzle their master's goods are subject to a greater degree of punishment than others who commit those crimes. Masters are not compellable to give a character to servants who leave their employment. If they choose to do so, and they give one which is false, they may be liable to an action at the suit of the servant ; but in order to recover in such an action, the servant must prove that the character was maliciously given for the purpose of in juring him. If the master, merely for the purpose of confidentially communi cating, bond fide state what he believes to be the truth respecting a servant, he is not responsible for the consequences of his communication.
By a great variety of statutes, the pro visions of which are collected and ex plained in Burn's Justice, tit. 'Servants,' a special jurisdiction is given to magis trates over servants in husbandry, and also in many classes of manufactures and and other employments. None of these rules of law apply to domestic servants. The object of them, as relates to servants in husbandry, is to compel persons who have no ostensible means of subsistence to enter into service, to regulate the time and mode of their service, to punish neg ligence and refusal to serve, to determine disputes between masters and servants, to enable servants to recover their wages, and to authorise magistrates under cer tain circumstances to put an end to the service.