Regency Household: Laws Concerning Masters and Servants

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The Cookโ€™s Complete Guide on the Principles of Frugality, Comfort, and Elegance (1810) gives a brief overview of laws that impact the hiring, firing, punishment and management of servants.

LAWS CONCERNING MASTERS AND SERVANTS A vervant through carelessness setting fire to a dwelling house on out honse is liable io a penalty ot twenty pounds and six month's continement in the house of correction Where servants are hired by the year they cannot be discharged before the expiration of that time witho it their own consent or some reasonable cause to be allowed by a magistrate All hiring without stipulation of time is hiring for a year If a servant refuses to serve his term he may be committed till he giver security to fulfil his engagement or he may be sent to the house of correction A yearly servant shall not be discharged for sickness or any oiber disability by the act of God nor shall his wages be abated A master detaining a servant's wages or not allowing him sufficient food is a cause for his leaving the place by appeal to a magistrate If a waster or mistress refuse to give a character to a servant an action will lie and so likewise it they say any thing wrong whereby suclฤฑ servant is prevented from getting another place On the other hand the fabri cation of a false or fictitious character by a servant is punishable by imprisonment in the house of correction If a servant who is hired for a term quit his place without consent before the end of it be loses his wages A servant hired for a month cannot be discharged till the whole wages be paid unless for some reasonable cause shewn before a magis trate If a servant after warning is insolent and refuses to do his duty he may be comr tted to prison but without forfeiting his wages even for the time he iu continement If any servant shall purloin or make away with master's goods to the value of forty shillings it is felony If masters on hiring servants deliver into their custody valu able articles of properiy and tell them before witnesses that they must be responsible for the same the law will oblige ihem to replace whatever may be lost except the casual breaking of china or glass which are vecessarily liable to accidents Whatever trespass a servant commits by viuer of his emp oyer the master is answerable for A servant may also stand up in the defence of his master or mistress and attack any person that assaults them without being liable to a prosecution for so doing If a master deliver the key of a room to a servant and he steals theretrom to the value of a shilling it is felony If any goods be delivered to the care of a servant above eigliteen years old and he go away with them or convert them to his own use it is felony Servants pawning the goods of their masters without orders shall forfeit twenty shillings toge her with the value of the property or be sent to the house of correction is three months Such goods may be searched for by a warrant and shall be restored to the owner A servant setting fire carelessly to the house of his master is liable to pay on the oath of one credible witness a penalty of one hundred pounds cr be committed to prison and hard labour for eighteen months A female servant ho marries is obliger to abide the stipulated time and if both man and wife are servants by the year they must continue in place till the ex piration of that term Should a woman with child hire herself for term and the master she hires with know not of her condition he may discharge her but not without the consent of a magistrate It she p ove with child during her servitude he may do the same but i he do not discharge her before a justice of the peace when he knows of it and heeps her he is bour to provide for her till her delivery and one mio th aster when she is to be sent to her place of settlement

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