hen the
procurement of _permanent_ service, for a long period, is spoken of.
Now, we ask, would _permanent_ servants, those who constituted an
integral and stationary part of the family, have been designated by the
same term that marks _temporary_ servants? The every-day distinctions
made on this subject, are as familiar as table-talk. In many families,
the domestics perform only such labor, as every day brings along with
it--the _regular_ work. Whatever is _occasional_ merely, as the washing
of a family, is done by persons _hired expressly for the purpose_. In
such families, the familiar distinction between the two classes, is
"servants," or "domestics," and "hired help," (not _paid_ help.) _Both_
classes are _paid_. One is permanent, the other occasional and
temporary, and therefore in this case called "_hired_." To suppose a
servant robbed of his earnings, because when spoken of, 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, instead
of giving him so much a month, I _give him such a portion of the crop_,
or in other words, if he works my farm _"on shares,"_ he is no longer my
_hired_ man. Every farmer knows that _that_ designation is not applied
to him. 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 the
twelve, paid him while he was my _hired_ laborer. Now, as the technic
_"hired"_ is no longer used to designate him, and as he still labors on
my farm, suppose my neighbors gather in conclave, and from such ample
premises sagely infer, that since he is no longer my _"hired"_ laborer,
I _rob_ him of his earnings, and with all the gravity of owls, they
record their decision, and adjourn to hoot it abroad. My neighbors are
deep divers!--like some theological professors, they not only go to the
bottom, but come up covered with the tokens.
A variety of particulars are recorded in the Bible, 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_ at the close of their period of service.
Deut. xv. 12-13. (2
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