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HIRING (from O. Eng. hyrian, a word c...

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Originally appearing in Volume V13, Page 523 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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HIRING (from O. Eng. hyrian, a word See also:common to many See also:Teutonic See also:languages cf. Ger. heuern, Dutch huren, &c.)  , in See also:law, a See also:contract by which one See also:man grants the use of a thing to another in return for a certain See also:price . It corresponds to the locatio-conductio of See also:Roman law . That contract was either a letting of a thing (locatio-conductio rei) or of labour (locatio operarum) . The distinguishing feature of the contract was the price . Thus the contracts of mutuum, commodatum, depositum and mandatum, which are all gratuitous contracts, become, if a price is fixed, cases of locatio-conductio . In See also:modern See also:English law the See also:term can scarcely be said to be used in a strictly technical sense . The contracts which the Roman law grouped together under the See also:head of locatio-conductio—such as those of landlord and See also:tenant, See also:master and servant, &c.—are not in English law treated as cases of See also:hiring but as See also:independent varieties of contract . Neither in law books nor in See also:ordinary discourse could a tenant See also:farmer be said to hire his See also:land . Hiring would generally be applied to contracts in which the services of a man or the use of a thing are engaged for a See also:short See also:time . Hiring Fairs, or See also:Statute Fairs, still held in See also:Wales and some parts of See also:England, were formerly an See also:annual fixture in every important See also:country See also:town . These fairs served to bring together masters and servants . The men and maids seeking See also:work stood in rows, the See also:males together and the See also:females together, while masters and mistresses walked down the lines and selected those who suited them .

Originally these hiring-fairs were always held on Martinmas See also:

Day (11th of See also:November) . Now they are held on different See also:dates in different towns, usually in See also:October or November . In See also:Cumberland the men seeking work stood with straws in their mouths . In See also:Lincolnshire the bargain between employer and employed was closed by the giving of the " fasten-See also:penny," the See also:earnest See also:money, usually a See also:shilling, which " fastened " the contract for a twelvemonth . Some few days after the Statute See also:Fair it was customary to hold a second called a See also:Mop Fair or Runaway Mop . " Mop " (from See also:Lat. mappa, napkin, or small See also:cloth) meant in Old English a tuft or tassel, and the fair was so called, it is suggested, in allusion to tufts or badges worn by those seeking employment . Thus the See also:carter wore whipcord on his See also:hat, the cowherd a tuft of cow's See also:hair, and so on . Another possible explanation would be to take the word " mop " in its old provincial See also:slang sense of " a See also:fool," mop fair being the See also:fools' fair, a sort of last See also:chance offered to those who were too dull or slovenly-looking to be hired at the statute fair . Perhaps " run-away " suggests the See also:idea of those absent through See also:drunkenness, or those who simply feared to See also:face the See also:ordeal of the larger hiring and so ran away .

End of Article: HIRING (from O. Eng. hyrian, a word common to many Teutonic languages cf. Ger. heuern, Dutch huren, &c.)
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