en.--ANTHONY TROLLOPE, _The West Indies and the
Spanish Main_ pp. 224-225.

VIII

THE LABOR ACT

_Provisional Act to Regulate the Relations between the
Proprietors of Landed Estates and the Rural Population of Free
Laborers_

I, Peter Hansen, Knight Commander of the Order Dannebrog, the
King's Commissioner for, and officiating Governor-General of the
Danish West India Islands, Make known: That, whereas the
ordinance dated 29th July, 1848, by which yearly contracts for
labor on landed estates were introduced, has not been duly acted
upon: whereas the interest of the proprietors of estates, as well
as of the laborers, requires that their mutual obligations should
be defined: and whereas on inquiry into the practice of the
Island, and into the printed contracts and agreements hitherto
made, it appears expedient to establish uniform rules throughout
the Island, for the guidance of all parties concerned, it is
enacted and ordained:

1st. All engagements of laborers now domiciled on landed estates
and receiving wages in money, or in kind, for cultivating and
working such estates, are to be continued as directed by the
ordinance of 29th July, 1848, until the first day of October of
the present year: and all similar engagements shall, in future,
be made, or shall be considered as having been made, for a term
of twelve months, viz: from the first of October till the first
of October, year after year. Engagements made by heads of
families are to include their children between five and fifteen
years of age, and other relatives depending on them and staying
with them.

2nd. No laborer engaged as aforesaid, in the cultivation of soil,
shall be discharged or dismissed from, or shall be permitted to
dissolve, his or her engagement before the expiration of the
same on the first of October of the present, or of any following
year, except in the instances hereafter enumerated.

A. By mutual agreement of master and laborer, before a
magistrate.

B. By order of a magistrate on just and equitable cause being
shown by the parties interested.

Legal marriage, and the natural tie between mothers and their
children, shall be deemed by the magistrate just and legal cause
of removal from one estate to another. The husband shall have a