without good cause, before he has worked out the time for which he was hired, he cannot recover his wages. And for immoral conduct, wilful disobedience, or habitual neglect, he may be disraissed. On the other hand, ill usage, or any failure on the part of the employer to full his engagement, releases the laborer from his service.

§ 8. How far a master is answerable for the acts of his hired servant, is not clear. As a general rule, however, the master is bound by contracts made, and liable for injuries done, by a servant actually engaged in the business of his master, whether the injury proceeds from negligence or from want of skill. But for an injury done by a wilful act of the servant, it is considered that the master is not liable.

§ 9. If the servant employs another to do his business. the master is liable for the injury done by the person so employed. But a servant is accountable to his master for a breach of trust, or for negligence in business, or for in juring another person in his master's business.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

Of Fraudulent Conveyances; and of Contracts in General

§1. PROPERTY is sometimes fraudulently conveyed from one person to another. Debtors often put their property into the hands of others, to be kept from being taken to pay those whom they owe. With the same intent, property is fre quently assigned to others, by way of mortgage, with the false pretence that the assignment is made for the security of a debt, when no such debt is honestly due; and when the property mortgaged is to remain in possesion of the person conveying it, with the understanding that the mortgagee is never to take it.

§ 2. To prevent such fraudulent conveyances and sales

term? For what cause may he be dismissed? For what may he leave? $8. In what cases are masters liable for acts of servants? 9. If a servant employs another, what? For what is a servant accountable?

1. How is property sometimes fraudulently conveyed ?

$2. What

of property, the law declares, that all deeds of gift, and all transfers of goods and chattels, made by any person to secure them for his future use, shall be void, and shall not prevent them from being taken and sold to pay his debts. And to protect creditors against losses, the law also prescribes the manner in which sales and conveyances of property must be made, to be considered honestly done.

§3. Now as a sale or an assignment is more likely to be fraudulent when the property remains with the seller or assignor, than when the assignee takes it into his own posses. sion, it has long been a settled principle of law, that if property assigned or sold continues with the person pledging or selling it, the transaction is to be deemed fraudulent, and the property may be taken by creditors.

§4. This principle of the common law has been in some measure changed, in this state. Our law establishes the same general principle, but provides, that if the person to whom a sale or an assignment is made, can make it appear that it has been done in good faith, and without any intent to hinder, delay or defraud creditors, he may hold the property, although it remains with the seller or assignor.

§ 5. But although this law affords security to the man who honestly takes an assignment of property for the security of a debt, yet the mortgager, having it still in his possession, might fraudulently sell it to a second purchaser, who would afterwards be compelled to give it up, and so suffer loss. To prevent this, the law requires, that any person to whom personal property is pledged, shall deliver the mortgage to the town clerk, to be filed and kept in his office; or where there is a county clerk's office in the town, the mortgage must be filed in such office; that any person wishing to know whether such property is under mortgage or not, may ascertain the fact at such office. And it is farther required, that the assignment be under seal, and renewed at the end of one year from its date, and from the date of each renewal.

§ 6. A contract for leasing land for a longer period than one year, or for the sale of land, or of any interest in land,

general provision of law has been made to prevent this? 3. If property remains with the seller, what is to be supposed $4. What does the law of this state provide in such cases? 5. How is a second purchaser in danger of loss? What law has been made to prevent this? 6. How are

is declared to be void, unless the contract, or some note or memorandum thereof, expressing the consideration, be in writing, and subscribed by the party making the lease or sale, or by his lawfully authorized agent. By consideration is here meant the price, or any thing that is the cause or reason for which a person enters into an agreement. Thus the money paid or to be paid for a farm, is the consideration for which the seller grants it to the purchaser.

§ 7. In this state, an agreement which is not to be per formed within a year from the time it is made; and a special promise to pay the debt or answer for the default of another person, must be in writing. And a contract for the sale of any goods, chattels, or things in action, for the price of fifty dollars or more, is void, without such writing, unless the buyer accepts and receives a part of the goods or of the evidences of them; or unless the buyer at the time pays some part of the purchase money.

§ 8. Much that relates to the nature of contracts is to be learned from the common law. As has been said, there must be some valuable consideration upon which a promise to do a thing is made; and there must be a mutual promise of both parties, to make a bargain binding; but the consideration may be something else than money or property; it is sufficient if it is any thing that is either a benefit to the party promising, or some loss or trouble to the party to whom the promise is made.

§ 9. A says to B, if you will deliver to me twenty bushels of wheat to-morrow, I will pay you twenty dollars for it. Now if B brings the wheat, A is not obliged to take it and pay the price offered, because B did not on his part promise to deliver it. But if B had so promised, A would be bound to fulfill, because B has fulfilled on his part. The consideration in the case is the promise of each; and the party that fails to fulfill, is liable to the other for the damage sustained.

§ 10. If you buy a horse to-day to be delivered to you

contracts for leasing land made binding? What is consideration in a contract? 7. What other contracts must be in writing to be binding? How may an unwritten contract for fifty dollars be made binding? 8. Wha consideration other than money makes a contract valid? 9. Give an example. 10. Which party runs the risk of accident to property? 11

to-morrow, and the horse should die before delivery, the loss is yours. The risk of accident to property is, in such cases, with the buyer. A buyer becomes the owner of property as soon as the contract is completed; but he is not entitled to take it into his possession till he pays or tenders the price, unless he has bought on a credit.

§ 11. An agreement to do what is impossible to be done, or what is unlawful; or an agreement that is made under some threat or fear, is not binding. Idiots are not bound by their contracts; nor are lunatics bound by any agreement made while they are insane.

§12. A person cannot give to another a title to what he does not himself own. A man buying a stolen horse cannot hold him, but must give him up to the owner. The thief, having no lawful title to the horse, could give no title. And if the horse should be sold ever so often, the owner has a right to take him wherever he finds him, by proving him to be his; and each purchaser must look for redress to the person who sold him the property.

13. Frauds are often committed in selling articles that are faulty or unsound. It is the general rule of law, that if the seller does not expressly warrant an article, or if there is no fraud on his part, the buyer must abide the loss if the article proves defective. But if the seller conceals the defect knowing it to exist, he is liable to make good the damage. §14. There is much written in the books concerning contracts; but it is not easy to find a law to apply to every contract that may be made. A large portion of the lawsuits are caused by the failure of persons to fulfill their engagements. If all would practise and encourage honest dealing, and endeavor to be faithful in discharging their obligations, there would be little need of studying the law of contracts; and much money spent in lawsuits, and many unkind feelings between man and man, would be prevented.

What agreements are never binding? § 12. Can a man give a title to what is not lawfully his own? State a case? 13. What is the law about warranting property? 14. What is said about the law of contracts?

CHAPTER XXXV.

Of Principal and Factor, or Agent; and of Laen.

§1. A principal is one who employs another, as agent, to transact his business. A factor is an agent; but the word factor is generally understood to mean a commercial agent; that is, one who is employed by merchants residing in a distant place, to buy and sell, and transact business for them. Thus, country merchants send their wheat, pork, pot-ashes, and other country produce, and millers send their flour, to their agents in the city of New-York, to be disposed of. The owners of the property are called principals; their agents are factors, or, as they are perhaps more frequently called, commission merchants. As receivers of property consigned to them, they are also called consignees, and the persons who consign or commit to them their property, are consignors.

§ 2. For the accommodation of the principal, the factor sometimes pays him a part of the value of the produce before it is sold. This is called advancing money. But factors would seldom advance money without security. They have, therefore, by law, a claim on the property on which they advance the money; and they can hold it till they shall have been paid their charges against the owner. And as a factor does not always know who is the actual owner, the person in whose name the goods are shipped, is to be considered the owner.

§ 3. This claim which a factor has upon goods intrusted to him for sale, is called lien; and the factor may sell the goods, and retain out of the proceeds of the sale, what is due him; and the remainder he must pay to the principal, or

owner.

§ 4. But a person cannot sell or pledge property committed to him for transportation or storage only; nor can a factor pledge goods intrusted to him for sale, as security for

1. Define principal and factor. Who are consignees? Consignors! 2. What is advancing money? How is a factor secured? 3 What is this claim of a factor called? 4. In what cases cannot a factor sell or