3. The special justices sit three days in the week at their offices, where all complaints are carried, both by the master and apprentice. The magistrates do not go the estate, either to try or to punish offenders. Besides, the three days the magistrates are required to be at home every Saturday, (that being the day on which the apprentices are disengaged,) to give friendly advice and instruction on points of law and personal rights to all apprentices who may call.
PROVISIONS RESPECTING THE MASTER.
1. The master is allowed the gratuitous labor of the apprentice for forty-five hours each week. The several islands were permitted by the English government to make such a division of this time as local circumstances might seem to require. In some islands, as for instance in St. Christopher's and Tortola, it is spread over six days of the week in proportions of seven and a half hours per day, thus leaving the apprentice mere shreds of time in which he can accomplish nothing for himself. In Barbadoes, the forty-five hours is confined within five days, in portions of nine hours per day.
2. The allowances of food continue the same as during slavery, excepting that now the master may give, instead of the allowance, a third of an acre to each apprentice, but then he must also grant an additional day every week for the cultivation of this land.
3. The master has no power whatever to punish. A planter observed, "if I command my butler to stand for half an hour on the parlor floor, and it can be proved that I designed it as a punishment, I may be fined for it." The penalty for the first offence (punishing an apprentice) is a fine of five pounds currency, or sixteen dollars, and imprisonment if the punishment was cruel. For a second offence the apprentice is set free.
Masters frequently do punish their apprentices in despite of all penalties. A case in point occurred not long since, in Bridgetown. A lady owned a handsome young mulatto woman, who had a beautiful head of hair of which she was very proud. The servant did something displeasing to her mistress, and the latter in a rage shaved off her hair close to her head. The girl complained to the special magistrate, and procured an immediate release from her mistress's service.
4. It is the duty of the master to make complaint to the special magistrate. When the master chooses to take the punishment into his own hand, the apprentice has a right to complain.
5. The master is obliged to sell the remainder of the apprentice's term, whenever the apprentice signifies a wish to buy it. If the parties cannot agree about the price, the special magistrate, in connection with two local magistrates, appraises the latter, and the master is bound to take the amount of the appraisement, whatever that is. Instances of apprentices purchasing themselves are quite frequent, not withstanding the term of service is now so short, extending only to August, 1840. The value of an apprentice varies from thirty to one hundred dollars.
PROVISIONS RESPECTING THE APPRENTICE.
1. He has the whole of Saturday, and the remnants of the other five days, after giving nine hours to the master.