the apprentice, while the relationship continues and the apprentice is in his service; and there are cases which give the master a right to the wages or earnings of the apprentice while in another's service, and with or without his master's license, and even though the trade or service be different from that to which the apprentice is bound. (a) But Lord Hardwicke declared, in the case before him, that if the master had not done his duty with the apprentice, and had been the unjustifiable cause of his pursuing a different course of life, he would grant relief *266 in equity against the master's legal claim to his earn ings.1 Upon the death of the master, the apprenticeship is essentially dissolved, for the end and design of it, as a personal trust, cease; but the assets in the hands of the representatives of the master are chargeable with the necessary maintenance of the infant apprentice. (b)2 (a) Hill v. Allen, 1 Vesey, 83. Barber v. Dennis, 6 Mod. Rep. 69. Lightly v. Clouston, Taunt. Rep. 112. Harg. Co. Litt. 117, note a. If an apprentice runs away, and enters into another's service, his gains belong to the master from whom he deserted, though prize money earned in a ship of war forms, in England, an exception. Carsan v. Watts, 3 Doug. Rep. 350. The master of an apprentice is bound to pay for medical attendance on the apprentice, from the nature of the relation between them. It is not so in the case of hired servants, and even the father only bound when the services have been rendered at his instance. Easley v. Craddock, 4 Randolph's Rep. 423. By the English cases, the better opinion would seem to be, that the master is not liable for medical assistance to his hired servants. Newby v. Wiltshire, 4 Doug. Rep. 284. Wennall v. Adney, 3 Bos. & Pull. 247. Contra, Lord Kenyon, in Scarman v. Castell, 1 Esp. N. P. Gas. 270. (b) The King v. Peck, 1 Salk. Rep. 66. Baxter v. Burfield, Str. Rep. 1266. It If the master neglects to take charge of the apprentice for the whole term, the authority of the parent or guardian will supervene. Commonwealth v. Conrow, 2 Barr R. 402. A master taking an apprentice in any particular art or trade, has no right to employ his apprentice in menial services unconnected with the trade. Commonwealth v. Hemperly, (Penn.) Law Reporter, vol. xii. July, 1849, p. 129. 2 In the legislation of England and of the states of the American Union, humane efforts have been made to protect children from laborious toil unsuitable to their years. In Connecticut, no child under ten years of age shall be employed in any manufacturing or mechanical establishment; and no minor under the age of eighteen shall be employed in any such establishment more than twelve hours in any one day, or more than sixty nine hours in any one week. (Laws Conn. 1856, c. 39.) There is a similar law in Pennsylvania. Act of Penn. 1849, No. 415. There is also a similar provision in Maine, ch. 83, 1849. And also in N. Hamp. ch. 488, 1847. By an English statute, (10 & 11 Vict. ch. 29,) the hours of labor of young persons and females has been held, in Versailles v. Hall, 5 Louis. Rep. 281, that the contract of apprenticeship was personal, and not susceptible of alienation without the consent of all parties concerned, and consequently, that it ceased on the insolvency, as well as death of the master, inasmuch as his character and disposition entered into the consideration of the contract. This relation of master and apprentice was, in its original spirit and policy, an intimate and interesting connection, calculated to give the apprentice a thorough trade education, and to advance the mechanic arts in skill, neatness, and fidelity of workmanship, as well as in the facility and utility of their application. The relationship, if duly cultivated under a just sense of the responsibility attached to it, and with the moral teachings which belong to it, will produce parental care, vigilance, and kindness on the part of the master, and a steady, diligent, faithful, and reverential disposition and conduct on the part of the apprentice. In taking leave of the extensive subject of the domestic relations, I cannot refrain from acknowledging the assistance I have received from the work of the late Chief Justice Reeve, on that title. That excellent lawyer and venerable man has discussed every branch of the subject in a copious manner; and though there is some want of precision and accuracy in his reference to authority, and sometimes in his deductions, yet he everywhere displays the vigor, freedom, and acuteness of a sound and liberal mind. were restricted, after the first of May, 1848, to ten hours in any one day, and to fifty hours in any one week. This law, though opposed in England on grounds of political economy, will be regarded by the humane as reflecting honor upon Lord Ashley, to whose energetic exertions it is to be mainly attributed. By the laws of New Jersey, of 1851, p. 321, no minor under ten years of age is permitted to work in any factory; and no minor whatever can be required to work more than ten hours a day. 26* LECTURE XXXIII. OF CORPORATIONS. A CORPORATION is a franchise possessed by one or more individuals, who subsist as a body politic, under a special denomination, and are vested, by the policy of the law, with the capacity of perpetual succession, and of acting in several respects, however numerous the association may be, as a single individual. The object of the institution is to enable the members to act by one united will, and to continue their joint powers and property in the same body, undisturbed by the change of members, and without the necessity of perpetual conveyances, as the rights of members pass from one individual to another. All the individuals composing a corporation, and their successors, are considered in law as but one person, capable, under an artificial form, of taking and conveying property, contracting debts and duties, and of enjoying a variety of civil and political rights. One of the peculiar properties of a corporation is the power of perpetual succession; for, in judgment of law, it is capable of indefinite duration. The rights and privileges of the corporation do not determine, or vary, upon the death or change of any of the individual members. They continue as long as the corporation endures. It is sometimes said that a corporation is an immortal as well as an invisible and intangible being. But the immortality of a corporation means only its capacity to take in perpetual succession so long as the corporation exists. It is so far from being immortal, that it is well known that most of the private corporations recently created by statute are limited in duration to a few years. There are many corporate bodies that are without limitation, and consequently, capable of continuing so long as a succession of individual members of the corporation remains and can be kept up. It was chiefly for the purpose of clothing bodies of men in succession with the qualities and capacities of one single, artificial, and fictitious being, that corporations were originally invented, and, for the same convenient purpose, they have been brought largely into use. By means of the corporation, many individuals are capable of acting in perpetual succession like one single individual, without incurring any personal hazard or responsibility, or exposing any other property than what belongs to the corporation in its legal capacity. 1. Of the history of corporations. Corporations, private as well as public or municipal, were well known to the Roman law, and they existed from the earliest periods of the Roman republic. (a) It would appear, from a passage in the Pandects, (b) that the provisions on this subject were copied from the laws of Solon, who permitted private companies to institute themselves at pleasure, provided they did nothing contrary to the public law. But the Romans were not so indulgent as the Greeks. They were very jealous of (a) They were known to the Twelve, Tables, for that early code allowed private companies to make their own by-laws, provided they were not inconsistent with the public law. Vide supra, vol. i. p. 524, Table 8th. (b) Dig. 47, 22, 4. See, also, 3 St. John on the Manners of Ancient Greece, 76, 77. The free states of Greece, subsequently to the period of the heroic age, were merely cities with their districts, and with internal constitutions of their own, and possessing the exclusive management of their own concerns. The confederation of cities was for mutual defence. Heeren on the Political History of Ancient Greece, edit. Oxford, 1834. The people of Attica, under the division of tribes, were in a degree distinct and independent corporations. They had each their respective heads or presidents, and enjoyed the right of deliberating and deciding in common upon matters connected with their own interests, and of framing any rules and regulations for themselves, provided they were not at variance with the laws of the whole state. See Schöman's Dissertation on the Assemblies of the Athenians, p. 346, where he refers to Gaius De Collegiis, lib. 4, D. The Demi were subdivisions of the tribes, and they had each their respective magistrates, their own independent property, their common treasury, and general meetings or assemblies for deliberation and decision on their own affairs. It was necessary for every citizen of Attica, whether genuine or adopted, to belong to some one Demus, and to have his name enrolled in its register. Id. 353, 356. These civil and political institutions bear some analogy to the counties, cities, and towns in our American states. such combinations of individuals, and they restrained those that were not specially authorized; and every corporation was illicit that was not ordained by a decree of the senate or of the emperor. (a) Collegia licita, in the Roman law, were like our incorporated companies, societies of men united for some useful business or purpose, with power to act like a single individual; and if they abused their right, or assembled for any other *269 purpose than that expressed in their charter, they were deemed illicita, and many laws, from the time of the twelve tables down to the times of the emperors, were passed against all illicit or unauthorized companies. (b) In the age of Augustus, as we are informed by Suetonius, (c) certain corporations had become nurseries of faction and disorder, and that emperor interposed, as Julius Cæsar had done before him, (d) and dissolved all but the ancient and legal corporations-cuncta collegia, præter antiquitus constituta distraxit. We find, also, in the younger Pliny, (e) a singular instance of extreme jealousy indulged by the Roman government of these corporations. A destructive fire in Nicomedia induced Pliny to recommend to the Emperor Trajan, the institution, for that city, of a fire company of 150 men, (collegium fabrorum,) with an assurance that none but those of that business should be admitted into it, and that the privileges granted them should not be extended to any other purpose. But the emperor refused to grant, and observed that societies of that sort had greatly disturbed the peace of the cities; and he observed, that whatever name he gave them, and for whatever purpose they might be instituted, they would not fail to be mischievous. The powers, capacities, and incapacities of corporations, under the English law, very much resemble those under the civil law; and it is evident that the principles of law applicable to corporations under the former, were borrowed chiefly from the Roman law, and from the policy of the municipal corporations established in Britain and the other Roman colonies, after the (a) Dig. 47, 22, 3, 1. (b) Taylor's Elements of the Civil Law, pp. 567-570. (d) Suet. J. Cæsar, 42. (e) Epist. b. 10. Letters, 42, 43. |