Those statutes which relate to servants in manufactures and other employments prohibit the payment of wages in goods, and provide for their payment in money, and for the regulation of disputes con cerning them. They also contain various enactments applicable to the cases of workmen, &c., absconding, neglecting. or mismanaging their work, injuring or em bezzling the materials, tools, &c., entrusted to them, and fraudulently receiving those entrusted to others. With respect also to this class of servants, magistrates have authority to put an end to she contracts of hiring and service. As to combina tions of masters or workmen, see COMBI NATION LAWS, p. 570.
A master is not guilty of the offence of maintenance, though he maintain and support his servant in an action brought by him against a third party. When a servant is assaulted, his master is justified in assisting his servant, and repelling the assault by force, although he himself be not attacked ; and under similar circum, stances a servant may justify an assault committed in defence of his master. A master is answerable, both civilly and criminally, for those acts of his servant which are done within the range of his employment. Thus a master is indictable if a servant commit a nuisance by throw ing dirt on the highway ; and a book seller or newsvender is liable, criminally as well as civilly, for libels which are sold by his servant in his shop. This liability of the master does not release the servant from his own liability to punish ment for the same offence. The servant is also liable when he commits a trespass by the command of his master. A mas ter, although liable civilly for any in juries arising from the negligence or un skilfulness of his servant, is not respon sible for the consequences of a wilful act of his servant done without the direction or assent of the master ; hut the servant alone is liable. Difficulties have some times occurred in determining who is responsible in the character of master for damages done to third persons by a ser vant. The following is an instance :— When a coachman is sent by the owner of horses let out for the purpose of draw ing a private carriage, and, while driving the hirer in his private carriage, does some damage to a third party, it has been held that the owner of the horses was liable; for the servant is the servant of the horse owner, and not of him whom he is driving. Where a servant makes a
contract within the range of his employ meut, what he does will bind his master, just as if he had expressly authorised the servant. But in all cases where there is no express evidence of the delegation of the master's authority, there must be facts from which such delegation can be inferred. Where a servant obtains goods for his master, which the master uses, and he afterwards gives money to the ser vant to pay for them, the master will be liable to pay for them, though the money should have been embezzled by the ser vant. If a coachman go in his master's livery to hire horses, which his master afterwards uses, the master will be liable to pay for them, though the coachman has I received a large salary for the purpose of providing horses ; unless, indeed, that fact were known to the party who let out the horses. If a master is in the habit of paying ready money for articles furnished to his family, and gives money to a ser vant, on a particular occasion, for the purpose of paying for the articles which he is sent to procure, the master will not be liable to the tradesman if the servant should embezzle the money. If articles furnished to a certain amount have al ways been paid for in ready money, and a tradesman allows other articles of the same character to be delivered without payment, the master will not be liable, unless the tradesman ascertains that the articles are for the master's own use. Where a tradesman, who had not before been employed by a master, was directed by a servant to do some work, and after wards did it without any communication with the master, it was held that the master was not liable, though the thing upon which the work was done was the property of the master.
Any person who interferes with the master's right to the services of his ser vant, does him an injury for which he is responsible in an action for damages. A master may be deprived of the services of a servant, either by some hurt done to a servant, or by his being enticed out of the service. An action, therefore, may be brought by a master where a servant has received some personal injury disqualify ing him from the discharge of his duties as a servant, as where he has been dis abled by the overturn of a coach, or the bite of a third person's dog. The action by a parent against the seducer of his daughter is of this class. [PARENT AND