The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus eBook

American Anti-Slavery Society
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 3,526 pages of information about The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus.

The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus eBook

American Anti-Slavery Society
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 3,526 pages of information about The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus.
help,” (not paid help.) Both classes are paid.  One is permanent, and the other occasional and temporary, and therefore in this case called “hired."[A] A variety of particulars are recorded distinguishing, hired from bought servants. 1.  Hired servants were paid daily at the close of their work.  Lev. xix. 13; Deut. xxiv. 14, 15; Job. vii. 2; Matt. xx. 8. “Bought” servants were paid in advance, (a reason for their being called bought,) and those that went out at the seventh year received a gratuity.  Deut. xv. 12, 13. 2.  The “hired” were paid in money, the “bought” received their gratuity, at least, in grain, cattle, and the product of the vintage.  Deut. xv. 14. 3.  The “hired” lived in their own families, the “bought” were a part of their masters’ families. 4.  The “hired” supported their families out of their wages; the “bought” and their families were supported by the master beside their wages. 5.  Hired servants were expected to work more constantly, and to have more working hours in the day than the bought servants.  This we infer from the fact, that “a hireling’s day,” was a sort of proverbial phrase, meaning a full day.  No subtraction of time being made from it.  So a hireling’s year signifies an entire year without abatement.  Job. vii. 1; xiv. 6; Isa. xvi. 14; xxi. 16.

[Footnote A:  To suppose a servant robbed of his earnings because he is not called a hired servant, is profound induction!  If I employ a man at twelve dollars a month to work my farm, he is my “hired” man, but if I give him such a portion of the crop, or in other words, if he works my farm “on shares,” every farmer knows that he is no longer called a “hired” man.  Yet he works the same farm, in the same way, at the same times, and with the same teams and tools; and does the same amount of work in the year, and perhaps clears twenty dollars a month, instead of twelve.  Now as he is no longer called “hired,” and as he still works my farm, suppose my neighbors sagely infer, that since he is not my “hired” laborer, I rob him of his earnings, and with all the gravity of owls, pronounce their oracular decision, and hoot it abroad.  My neighbors are deep divers! like some theological professors, they go not only to the bottom but come up covered with the tokens.]

The “bought” servants, were, as a class, superior to the hired—­were more trust-worthy, were held in higher estimation, had greater privileges, and occupied a more elevated station in society. 1.  They were intimately incorporated with the family of the master, were guests at family festivals, and social solemnities, from which hired servants were excluded.  Lev. xxii. 10, 11; Ex. xii. 43, 45. 2.  Their interests were far more identified with those of their masters’ family.  They were often, actually or prospectively, heirs of their masters’

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The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.