Hiring of Servants

It was provided by several old statutes, the first of which was passed in 1349, that all able-bodied persons who had no evident means of subsistence should put themselves as labourers to any that would hire them. In the following year were passed several other acts relating to labourers, by one of which, 25 Edward III. stat. i. c. i., entitled, "The Year and Day's Wages of Servants and Labourers in Husbandry," it was enacted that ploughmen and all other labourers should be hired to serve for the full year, or other usual terms, and not by the day; and further, "That such labourers do carry ope…