Servitude in United Kingdom

Concept of Servitude

The following is an old definition of Servitude [1], a term which has several meanings:1. The condition of a person who is bound to the performance of services. Involuntary servitude. “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” There is no reference here to servitudes attached to property. That a personal servitude was meant is proved by the use of the word ” involuntary,” which can only be applied to human beings. The exception as a punishment gives an idea of the class meant. ” Servitude ” is of larger meaning than ” slavery,” as the latter is popularly understood. The purpose was to forbid all shades and conditions of African slavery. The committee on the details of the original Constitution used ” servitude ” as referring to an engagement to labor for a term of years. The committee on revision unanimously substituted ” service ” for it, servitude being thought to express the condition of slaves, service an obligation of free persons. See Slavery. The act of June 23, 1874, protects persons of foreign birth against forcible constraint or involuntary servitude. Under this act it was decided that an intention in a defendant in bringing a child to the United States to employ him as a beggar, or as a street musician, for his own profit,if such employment would be injurious to the morals of the child and inconsistent with its proper care and education, according to its condition, is an intention to hold to involuntary servitude, although the child (in Italy) consented to the employment and did not afterward dissent. See Kidnaping; Persuade. Penal servitude. In England, a punishment introduced by 16 and 17 Vict. (1853), c. 99, in lieu of transportation. A convict subjected to this punishment may be kept in any place of confinement in the kingdom, or in any river, port, or harbor thereof, or in some place in her majesty’s dominions beyond the seas, appointed therefor by order in council, according as the secretary of the state may direct; and may be kept at hard labor, and be otherwise dealt with, as was a person transported. Statute 20 and 21 Vict. (1857), c. 3, abolished transportation; and 27 and 28 Vict. (1864), c. 47, sec. 2, forbids sentence to penal servitude for a shorter period than five years. See Ticket, Of leave

Alternative Meaning

Metaphorically, a charge upon one estate for the benefit of another. An incorporeal right, derived from the civil law, and answering to the easement (see, in this resource, the term)ot the common law. An example is the right to fasten joists in another’s wall. See Support, 1. The Roman law admitted and provided for rights in the property of others, jura in re aliena, or, as they were usually called, jura in re. The oldest of these rights were called servitutes, servitudes, subjections-the subjection of one estate to another, the liability of one estate to be used for the advantage of another. The relation was not affected by a change of owners. Among the most important were servitudes of way, drive, road, water-draining. These were known as the “praedial ” servitudes. There were also “personal” servitudes, in which the right of use vested in a particular individual, and terminated with his life. The most important of this class was the usufructus (see, in this resource, the term) the right to use and enjoy some property of another.

Resources

Notes and References

1. Meaning of Servitude provided by the Anderson Dictionary of Law (1889) (Dictionary of Law consisting of Judicial Definitions and Explanations of Words, Phrases and Maxims and an Exposition of the Principles of Law: Comprising a Dictionary and Compendium of American and English Jurisprudence; William C. Anderson; T. H. Flood and Company, Law Publishers, Chicago, United States)