SERVANTS... SERVITUDE

SERVANTS, (negro or mulatto,) Pennsylvania. By the fourth section of the act for the gradual abolition of slavery, passed the first day of March, 1780, 1 Smith's Laws of Penn. 492, it is "provided that every negro or mulatto child, born within this state after the passing of this act, (who would in case this act had not been made, have been a servant for years, or life, or a slave) shall be by virtue of this act the servant of such person, or his assigns who would in such case have been entitled to the service of such child, until such child attain unto the age of twenty-eight years, in the manner and on the conditions, whereon servants bound by indenture for four years are or may be retained or holden; and shall be liable to like correction and punishment, and entitled to like relief, in case he be evilly treated by his master, and to like freedom dues and privileges, as
servants bound by indenture for four years are entitled, unless the person to whom such services belong shall abandon his claim to the same; in which case the overseers of the poor where such child shall be abandoned shall by indenture bind out every such child so abandoned as an apprentice for a time not exceeding the age hereinbefore limited for the service of such children." And by the thirteenth section it is enac-ted, "that no covenant of personal servitude or apprenticeship whatsoever shall be valid or binding on a negro or mulatto for a longer time than seven years, unless such servant or apprentice were at the commencement of such servitude or apprenticeship, under the age of twenty-one years, in which case such negro or mulatto may be holden as a servant or apprentice, respectively, according to the covenant, as the case shall be, until he shall attain the age of twenty-eight years, but no longer." See 6 Binn. 204; 1 Browne's R. 369, n.

2. The act requires that a register of such children as would have been slaves shall be kept by a public officer therein designated. The want of registry entitles such child to freedom.

SERVANTS. In Louisiana they are divided into free servants and slaves. See Slaves; Slavery.

2. Free servants are, in general, all free persons who let, hire, or engage their services to another in the state, to be employed therein at any work, commerce, or occupation whatever, for the benefit of him who has contracted with them, for a certain sum or retribution, or upon certain conditions.

3. There are three kinds of free servants in the state, to wit:

4. - 1. Those who only hire out their services by the day, week, month, or year, in consideration of certain wages.

5. - 2. Those who engage to serve for a fixed time for a certain consideration, and who are therefore considered not as having hired out, but as having sold their services.

6. - 3. Apprentices that is, those who engage to serve any one, in order to learn some art, trade, or profession. Civ. Code of Lo. art. 155, 156, 157.

SERVANTS, menial. Domestics those who receive wages, and who are lodged and fed in the house of another, and who are employed in his services. Such servants are not particularly recognized by law. They are called menial servants, or domestics, from living infra moenia, within the walls of the house. 1 Bl. Com. 324; Wood's Inst. 53; 1 Sw. Syst. 218. The right of the master to their services in every respect is grounded on the contract between them. 2. Labor-ers, or persons hired by the day's work, or any longer time, are not considered servants. 1 Sw. Syst. 218; 5 Binn. 167; 3 Serg. & Rawle, 351. Vide 12 Ves. 114; 2 Vern. 546; 16 Ves. 486; 1 Rop. on Leg. 121; 3 Deac. & Chit. 332; 1 Mont. & Bligh. 413; 2 Mart. N. S. 652; Poth. Proc. Civ. sect. 2, art. 5, §5; Poth. Ob. n. 710, 828, French ed.; 9 Toull. n. 314; Domestic; Operative.

SERVI. This name was given by the Romans to their slaves; they were so called from servare, to preserve, from the ancient practice of the generals of the army, who were accustomed to sell their captives, and preserved them rather than kill them: servi autem ex eo appellati sunt, quod imperatores captivos vendere, ac per hoc servare, nec occidere solent. Inst. 1 3, 3.

SERVICE, contracts. The being employed to serve another.

2. In cases of seduction, the gist of the action is not injury which the seducer has inflicted on the parent by destroying his peace of mind, and the reputation of his child, but for the consequent inability to perform those services for which she was accountable to her master or her parent who assumes this character for the purpose Vide Seduction, and 2 Mees. & W. 539; 7 Car. & P. 528.

SERVICE, feudal law. That duty which the tenant owes to his lord, by reason of his fee or estate.

2. The services, in respect of their quality, were either free or base, and in respect of their quantity and the time of exacting them, were either certain or uncertain. 2 Bl. Com. 62.

3. In the civil law by service is sometimes understood servitude. (q. v.)

SERVICE, practice. To execute a writ or process; as, to serve a writ of capias signifies to arrest a defendant under the process; Kirby, 48; 2 Aik. R. 338; 11 Mass. 181; to serve a summons, is to deliver a copy of it at the house of the party, or to deliver it to him personally, or to read it to him; notices and other papers are served by delivering the same at the house of the party, or to him in person.

2. When the service of a writ is prevented by the act of the party on whom it is to be served, it will, in general, be sufficient if the officer do everything in his power to serve it. 39 Eng. C. L. R. 431 1 M. & G. 238.

SERVIENT, civil law. A term applied to an estate or tenement by which a servitude is due to another estate or tenement. See Dominant; Servitude.

SERVITUDE, civil law. A term which indicates the subjection of one person to another person, or of a person to a thing, or of a thing to a person, or of a thing to a thing.

2. Hence servitudes are divided into real, personal, and mixed. Lois des Bat. P. 1, c. 1.

3. A real or predial servitude is a charge laid on an estate for the use and utility of another estate belonging to another proprietor. Louis. Code, art. 643. When used without any adjunct, the word servitude means a real or predial servitude. Lois des Bat. P. 1, c. 1.

4. The subjection of one person to another is a purely personal servitude; if it exists in the right of property which a person exercises over another, it is slavery. When the subjection of one person to another is not slavery, it consists simply in the right of requiring of another what he is bound to do, or not to do; this right arises from all kinds of contracts or quasi con tracts. Lois des Bat. P. 1, c. 1, art. 1.

5. The subjection of persons to things or of things to persons, are mixed servitudes. Lois des Bat. P. 1, c. 1, art. 2.

6. Real servitudes are divided into rural and urban. Rural servitudes are those which are due by an estate to another estate, such as the right of passage over the serving estate, or that which owes the servitude, or to draw water from it, or to water cattle there, or to take coal, lime and wood from it, and the like. Urban servitudes are those which are established over a building fur the convenience of another, such as the right of resting the joists in the wall of the serving building, of opening windows which overlook the serving estate, and the like. Dict. de Jurisp. tit. Servitudes. See, generally, Lois des Bat. Part 1 Louis. Code, tit. 4; Code Civil, B. 2, tit. 4; This Dict. tit. Ancient Lights; Easements; Ways; Lalaure, Des Servitudes, passim.

SERVITUDES, NATURAL, civil law. Those servitudes which arise in consequence of the nature of the soil.

2. By law the inferior heritages, are submitted in relation to the natural flow of waters, and the like, to the superior. An inferior field is, therefore, subject to the injury or prejudice which the situation of the ground, in its natural state, way cause it.

SERVITUDES, personal. Those by which the property of a subject, in Scotland, is burdened in favor, not of a tenement, but of a person. Ersk. Pr. L. Scot. B. 2, t. 9, s. 23. Life rent is the only personal servitude there.

SERVITUS, civil law. A service or servitude; a burden imposed by law, or the agreement of parties upon certain persons, for the benefit of others; or upon one estate for the advantage of another, or for the benefit of another person than the owner.

SERVITUS. Servitude; slavery; a state of bondage. "Servitus autem, est constitutio," say the Institutes of Justinian, 1, 3, 2, "qua quis dominio alieno contra naturam subjicitur." Servitude is a disposition of the law of nations, by which, against common right, one man has been subjected to the dominion of another. See Bract. 4 b; Co. Litt. 116.

SERVITUS LUMINUM, civil law. The name of a servitude by which an obligation is imposed on the owner of a house to allow windows or lights to be put in his wall by the owner of the adjoining house. Dig. 4, 14, 40.

SERVITUS STILLIClDII, civil law. The name of a servitude which obliges the owner of an estate to receive, or his right to turn aside, the droppings or stream from his neighbor's house. Dig. 8, 2, 20 and 21, 41; Voet, h. t. n. 13. Vide Stillicidium.

SERVITUS TIGNI IMMITTENDI, civil law. The name of a servitude which consists in requiring him who owes it, to permit his neighbor to place his joists on his wall. It differs from the servitude Oneris ferendi. (q. v.) in this, that in the former the owner of the servient building is bound to repair and rebuild the wall; whereas, in the latter he is not. Dig. lib. 8, §2.