Bulletin of the Department of Labor Volume 7-11 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1896 Excerpt: ...with his surety; that he instructed the section boss to lock or fasten the defendant up at night, if he did not quit running about, but he did not know whether he told him to chain defendant or not, and that defendant had never complained of any cruel treatment at the hands of the section boss. Defendant, examined in his own behalf, denied that it was with his consent that he was put to work on the railroad, and stated that while engaged at such work he was compelled to sleep in box cars, without any comforts, but remained at work until the section boss threatened to chain him in the car at night, and he left that service only because he was wrongly treated. The service to which the defendant was bound under the contract with his employer, as authorized by statute, was penal. He was in contemplation of law performing labor or service as a punishment, as if sentenced to hard labor for the county. The confessed judgment and the contract approved by the court in such cases do not pay the penalty imposed, but are the conditions, as we have held, on which the offender, by the humane provisions of the law, is permitted to elect how and whom he will serve in satisfying its broken demands. The hirer becomes the transferee of the State to compel the satisfaction of the fine and costs in the manner provided for in the contract, and for nothing more. The failure to perform service under any contract not made in the manner prescribed by statute, for the purposes therein specified, is not denounced as criminal. When a contract of the kind has been once entered into, approved by the court, and filed, all as authorized by statute, it becomes binding and can not afterwards be modified by the consent, even, of the parties, so as to allow any other service to be legally exac...