The complete servant / Being a practical guide to the peculiar duties and business of all descriptions of servants, from the housekeeper to the servant of all-work, and from the land steward to the foot-boy. With useful receipts and tables

by servant Samuel Adams; Sarah Adams

Mode of settling disputes for Wages, and other matters.

Disputes with servants for wages under 10l. a year, and other matters, may be referred to a magistrate, who is authorized to redress such complaints. But magistrates in the metropolis can take no cognizance of the wages of coachmen, grooms, &c. as they come within the jurisdiction of the Commissioners of Hackney-Coaches, &c.

OF FALSE CHARACTERS.

Punishment for bringing false Characters.

If any person shall falsely personate any master or mistress, or his or her representative, and shall either verbally or in writing, give a false, forged, or counterfeit character to any person, offering him or herself to be hired as a servant; or, if any person shall pretend or assert, in writing, that any servant had been hired for any period of time, or in any station whatsoever, other than the true one, or that he was discharged, or left his service; or that such servant had not been hired in any previous service contrary to the truth.-Or, if any person shall offer him or herself as a servant, pretending that he hath served in any service, in which he hath not served; or with a false, forged, or counterfeit certificate of character; or shall in anywise add to, or alter, efface, or erase any word, date, matter, or thing, in any certificate given to him by his last or former actual master, or person authorized by him; or, if any person, having before been in service, shall, when offering himself to hire, falsely pretend not to have been hired in any former service; such person convicted of any, or either, of these offences, by the oath of one witness, (the informer to be deemed a competent witness,) before two justices, shall forfeit 20l. one half to go to the informer, and the other half to the poor of the parish, together with 10s. the costs of conviction; or on failure, be committed to hard labour in the House of Correction, for not less than one month, nor more than three, or, till the penalty and costs be paid.

And, if any servant so offending, shall give information against any accomplice, so that he be convicted, such servant shall be acquitted.

No Action will lie against a Master for a bad Character unless it be maliciously given.

No action can be maintained by a servant against his former master for a bad character, given either verbally or in writing, unless it can be proved that the character given was not only false but malicious.

HACKNEY COACH FARES.