Charles Scutt ca 1828-ca 1903

Notes [Sussex Advertiser, East Sussex Saturday 31 August 1867. Masters & Servants. It will be in the recollection of our readers that a report appeared in this journal of the Steyning Petty Sessions of Monday, July 22nd, last, in which an agricultural labourer, named Charles Scutt, was sentenced to 14 days hard labour in the Petworth House of Correction. The case did not attract special notice at the moment, but it seems to have been thought to have pressed with undue harshness upon the defendant, Scutt, and Mr. P. A. Taylor, M.P. for Leicester, presented a petition to the House of Commons from Scutt, on the 9th. That petition was in the following terms: The humble petition of the undersigned, Charles Scutt, of the parish of Thakeham, in the county of Sussex, showeth: that your petitioner is an agricultural labourer, and he has recently been confined in Petworth House of Correction; that he has never been in prison before; and that he has, up to the present time borne a good character as a steady and industrious labourer. "That at the petty sessions, held at Steyning, in the county of Sussex, on Monday, July 22, 1867, your petitioner was sentenced to fourteen days imprisonment with hard labour, at the instance of his then employer, Mr. Edward Luckin, for leaving his work; that his then employer was the only witness examined to prove the truth of the agreement for the breach if which your petitioner has been incarcerated in prison; that the agreement was viva voce; that your petitioner denied before the magistrates, and denies now, that the agreement was of the nature described by Walter Luckin, the son of Edward Luckin, and who was the prosecutor, as bailiff for his father. That other evidence was available, another labourer having been engaged on the same terms your petitioner, and of which evidence the prosecutor neglected to avail himself. "Your petitioner, therefore, prays your honourable House to give him redress, and your petitioner will ever pray. (Signed) "Charles Scutt, X his mark." We have no desire to prejudice this case, nor do we assume to offer an opinion as to the correctness of the decision at which the presiding magistrates arrived in respect to it. They had before them the evidence upon which to form their judgment, and probably had no alternative, looking to that evidence, and to the "law" as it stood, but to convict Charles Scutt, and award the punishment described in the above sentence. It is somewhat curious that one of the acts which received the Royal Assent before the prorogation of Parliament last week, was the Master and Servant's Act. It has long been felt that employers and employed had not been placed upon a fair footing towards each other, in respect to the infringement of their mutual agreements. The power of punishment for any infraction of agreements between master and workman rested mainly, if not entirely, in the hands of the firmer. No doubt the power to inflict grievous injury by the failure to carry out the arrangements between employer and employed was much greater and more mischievous in the case of the workman than in that of the employer, and it is not, perhaps, to be wondered at that legislation had, taking this particular view, been somewhat partial and somewhat one-sided in its operation. Workmen are often entrusted with the charge and execution of most delicate and important process; as in the case of manufactures of various kinds whilst looking to agricultural products, the wilful negligence or absence of workmen at a critical period might inflict heavy loss upon employers. Perhaps the character of our legislation may not have been altogether uninfluenced by the fact that we had, as a rule, a Parliament of employers, and our legislators naturally formed an alarmed if not an exaggerated view of the evils which wilfully negligent workmen might inflict, and felt the necessity of giving to the employer the means of prompt and efficient protection, without very closely weighing the position of the workman. Be this as it may, it has long been a matter of grievance amongst the working classes that the law relating to masters and servants was very much one-sided. This feeling took a practical direction in the Session of 1866, and Lord Elcho brought the matter before the House of Commons in that year, and obtained a committee to inquire into the whole subject. That committee sat and reported, and the result of the evidence taken and the report arrived at has been the passing of the Master and Servants Act, which received the Royal assent only so lately as last Tuesday. This Act recognizes the equal status of employer and employed, so far as relates to remedies for the non-fulfilment of the contracts entered into between the two parties in referring to this Act, the Times gives the following brief summary of its aim. "Henceforth, employers and employed have the same remedies. Whichever party feels aggrieved may lay his information before a Justice (in Scotland) a Sheriff, and the magistrate thereupon issues a summons calling upon the alleged offender to appear and answer the charge. Under ordinary circumstances the case wilt be heard not less than two, and not more than eight days after the issue of the summons, but it is provided that if at any time after laying the information it shall appear that the person complained cf is about to abscond, he may be required by a second summons to give security forthwith for his due appearance. If the complaint is investigated before Justices, two at least must be present and their order must be limited to giving damages or imposing a fine for breach of contract, or to decreeing actual performance of the contract, coupled with a direction to find security for its fulfilment. The possibility of such, aggravated offences as formed the excuse for the rigorous law now superseded is, however, recognized. Whenever it shall appear that aggravated misconduct or wilful injury has been committed, and not in the exercise of a legal right existing or reasonably a id bona fide is supposed to exist, the Justices may commit the offender to prison for any term not exceeding three months, subject to a power of appeal to the next Quarter Sessions. In all proceedings under the Act the parties themselves respondent as well a complainant are admissible witnesses. "The case of Charles Scutt is probably one of those which, dealt with under the new Act, would not have faulted in the circumstances which have led to the presentation of the petition above quoted. Those circumstances offer evidence, prima facie, of a case of hardship, and it is precisely in such instances as these that the operation of the New Master and Servant Act would appear to be beneficially applicable. Without, however, regarding this measure with a vie to any special case, there can be no doubt that it is most desirable, on every account, to remove all ground of complaint as to the unequal and partial operation of any law with respect to classes. Nothing creates a more irritable feeling amongst all ranks than a suspicion that there is in this country one law for the rich and another for the poor, indeed, nothing could be more hateful or more odious than such a fact. The legislation which has now been abolished and which has given way to the new state of things was born of other times and other circumstances, and it is a happy fact that the interests of masters and servants are now capable of being protected by a more liberal and more equable code than that which prevailed in olden times. The Masters and Servants Act is a tribute to the growing intelligence and liberal and enlightened spirit which pervades all classes at the present time of day. Nothing is more calculated to promote that spirit than the knowledge that even handed justice is the birthright to which both may look with confidence and trust, and the recent legislation on this matter will be regarded with all the more satisfaction by the mass of the people, seeing that it has been the handywork of a Parliament which, if "unreformed" has at least not awaited nor required the stimulus of Parliamentary Reform nor the aid of a House of Commons elected by the working men's suffrage to urge it to undertake legislation with a special view to procure for these case a full and frank interpretation of the independence and of the fair rights of labour.] [C S 74yr.]