HIRE-PURCHASE AGREEMENT, in the law of contract, a form of bailment of goods, on credit, which has extended very considerably of late years. Originally applied to the sale of the more expensive kinds of goods, such as pianos and articles of furniture, the hire-purchase agreement has now been extended to almost every description. The agreement is usually in writing, with a stipulation that the payments to purchase shall be by weekly, monthly or other instalments. The agreement is virtually one to purchase, but in order that the vendor may be able to recover the goods at any time on non-payment of an instalment, it is treated as an agreement to let and hire, with a provision that when the last instalment has been paid the goods shall become the property of the hirer. A clause provides that in case of default of any instalment, or breach of any part of the agreement, all previous payments shall be forfeited to the lender, who can forcibly recover the goods. Such agreements, therefore, do not pass the property in the goods, which remains in the lender until all the instalments have been paid. But the terms of the agreement may sometimes purposely obscure the nature of the transaction between the parties, where, for example, the hire-purchase is merely to create a security for money. In such a case a judge will look to the true nature of the transaction. If it is not a real letting and hiring, the agreement will require registration under the Bills of Sale Acts. If the agreement contains words to the effect that a person has “bought or agreed to buy” goods, the transaction comes under the Factors Act 1889, and the person in possession of the goods may dispose of them and give a good title. The doctrine of reputed ownership, by which a bankrupt is deemed the reputed owner of goods in his apparent possession, has been somewhat modified by trade customs, in accordance with which property is frequently let out on the hire-purchase system (see [Bankruptcy]).
HIRING (from O. Eng. hýrian, a word common to many Teutonic languages cf. Ger. heuern, Dutch huren, &c.), in law, a contract by which one man grants the use of a thing to another in return for a certain price. It corresponds to the locatio-conductio of Roman law. That contract was either a letting of a thing (locatio-conductio rei) or of labour (locatio operarum). The distinguishing feature of the contract was the price. Thus the contracts of mutuum, commodatum, depositum and mandatum, which are all gratuitous contracts, become, if a price is fixed, cases of locatio-conductio. In modern English law the term can scarcely be said to be used in a strictly technical sense. The contracts which the Roman law grouped together under the head of locatio-conductio—such as those of landlord and tenant, master and servant, &c.—are not in English law treated as cases of hiring but as independent varieties of contract. Neither in law books nor in ordinary discourse could a tenant farmer be said to hire his land. Hiring would generally be applied to contracts in which the services of a man or the use of a thing are engaged for a short time.
Hiring Fairs, or Statute Fairs, still held in Wales and some parts of England, were formerly an annual fixture in every important country town. These fairs served to bring together masters and servants. The men and maids seeking work stood in rows, the males together and the females together, while masters and mistresses walked down the lines and selected those who suited them. Originally these hiring-fairs were always held on Martinmas Day (11th of November). Now they are held on different dates in different towns, usually in October or November. In Cumberland the men seeking work stood with straws in their mouths. In Lincolnshire the bargain between employer and employed was closed by the giving of the “fasten-penny,” the earnest money, usually a shilling, which “fastened” the contract for a twelvemonth. Some few days after the Statute Fair it was customary to hold a second called a Mop Fair or Runaway Mop. “Mop” (from Lat. mappa, napkin, or small cloth) meant in Old English a tuft or tassel, and the fair was so called, it is suggested, in allusion to tufts or badges worn by those seeking employment. Thus the carter wore whipcord on his hat, the cowherd a tuft of cow’s hair, and so on. Another possible explanation would be to take the word “mop” in its old provincial slang sense of “a fool,” mop fair being the fools’ fair, a sort of last chance offered to those who were too dull or slovenly-looking to be hired at the statute fair. Perhaps “runaway” suggests the idea of those absent through drunkenness, or those who simply feared to face the ordeal of the larger hiring and so ran away.
HIROSAKI, a town of Japan in the province of Michmoku or Rikuchiu, north Nippon, 22 m. S.W. of Aomori by rail. Pop. about 37,000. The fine isolated cone of Iwakisan, a mountain of pilgrimage, rises to the west. Hirosaki is a very old place, formerly residence of a great daimio (or daimyo) and capital of a vast principality, and still the seat of a high court with jurisdiction over the surrounding districts of Aomori and Akita. Like most places in north Nippon, it is built with continuous verandas extending from house to house, and affording a promenade completely sheltered from the snows of winter. Apples of fine flavour grow in the district, which also enjoys some reputation for its peculiar green lacquer-ware.
HIROSHIGE (1797-1858), Japanese artist, was one of the principal members of that branch of the Ukiyo-ye or Popular School of Painting in Japan, a school which chiefly made colour-prints. His family name was Andō Tokitarō; that under which he is known having been, in accordance with Japanese practice, adopted by him in recognition of the fact that he was a pupil of Toyohiro. The earliest reference to him is in the account given by an inhabitant of the Lu-chu islands of a visit to Japan; where a sketch of a procession drawn with great skill by Hiroshige at the age of ten years only is mentioned as one of the remarkable sights seen. At the age of fifteen he applied unsuccessfully to be admitted to the studio of the elder Toyokuni; but was eventually received by Toyohiro. On the death of the latter in 1828, he began to practise on his own account, but finding small encouragement at Yedo (Tōkyō) he removed to Kiōto, where he published a set of landscapes. He soon returned to Yedo, where his work soon became popular, and was imitated by other artists. He died in that city on the 6th day of the 9th month of the year, Ansei 5th, at the age of sixty-two, and was buried at Asakusa. One of his pupils, Hironobu, received from him the name of Hiroshige II. and another, Ando Tokubei, that of Hiroshige III. All three were closely associated with the work signed with the name of the master. Hiroshige II. some time after the year 1863 fell into disgrace and was compelled to leave Yedo for Nagasaki, where he died; Hiroshige III. then called himself Hiroshige II. He died in 1896. The earlier prints by these artists, whose work can hardly be separated, are of extraordinary merit. They applied the process of colour block printing to the purposes of depicting landscape, with a breadth, skill and suitability of convention that has been equalled only by Hokusai in Japan, and by no European. Most of their subjects were derived from the neighbourhood of Yedo, or were scenes on the old high road—the Tokaidō—that ran from that city to Kiōto. The two elder of the name were competent painters, and pictures and drawings by them are occasionally to be met with.
See E. F. Strange, “Japanese Colour-prints” (Victoria and Albert Museum Handbook, 1904).
(E. F. S.)