The Akaroa Mail. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume V, Issue 477, 18 February 1881, Page 2

The Akaroa Mail. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18.

" A little 'earning is a dangerous thing." ! Wβ have no doubt that some of our renders have come across tins remark before, but that is the worst of it—all one's good things are almost sure to have been appropriated by some fellow who wrote a century or so ago. However, there stands the aphorism, and there is no doubt that it has a most extensive application. But if there is one department of knowledge to which it is more applicable than another, it is that " perfection of human widdom " called the Law. Amateur parsons are by many considered nuisances. The man who is always telling you what to do for that touch of the gout which you nre compelled to own to, and who can guarantee to cure the lameness in your favorite hack, ia decidedly a boer ; but both these classes are comparatively innocuous as compared with the bush lawyer. This individual has none of the doubt or hesitation which characterises the Hint) who has really endeavored to penetrate the mazes which surround the sanciu :i o l ' t lie most abstruse science. Tohi.n all iw ati " clear as mud." He has once or twice in his life heard a fluent counsel laying down the law on one point or another, and he is perfectly clear as to every question submitted to him, or which comes under his cognisance. His advice is invariably in favor of litigation. " You pull him, my boy ; you're bound to put him through," is about the tenor of his usual counsel. That he is almost invariably wrong goes without saying ; that those who confide in him become like unto him, and that no number of egregious failures has any effect in moderating his egotism, are equally patent facts. The genus exists,and is so tenacious of life that we are afraid its extinction is hope'ess,and its continued existence must be tolerated along with that of phylloxera, duns, book agents. We have been led into these reflections by some remarks we have heard in various quarters on a case of some importance lately heard in the Resident Magistrate's Court Akaroa. We alude to the case of " Masefield v. Harper." Our readers are familiar with the circumstances of the case, and we need not therefor recapitulate them. It will be remembered that counsel for the defendant claimed a nonsuit on the ground that, even if defendants men had raised the fire, it had been done outside the ordinary scope of their employment, and therefore that their employer was not liable for their wrongful act. The Court found, as jury, that there was no evidence or not sufficient that the lire referred to had been lighted by defendant's men, and it therefore became unnecessary to give a decision on the non-suit point. But some of those ytho heard it raised or heard of its being raised, have run away with a totally incorrect notion of what Mr Stringer's contention really was. In the course of the examination it wrtß given in evidenae that defendant had given Ids men orders not to lightfires during the progress of their work. Putting two and two together, several of the "little learning " order have come to the conclusion that the fact of a certain act committed by a servant being unnuthorisel, or forbidden, by his employer, exonerates the latter from all responsibility {is to consequences accruing therefrom.

Mr Stringer is far too good a lawyer to have raised such a contention, and any employer relying upon such an interpretation of tho law will find, if he comes into court, that he has been trusting to a broken reed. Without attempting to go into a definition of what is necessary to absolve an employer from liability for damages for the wrongful acts of his servant, it cannot bo too clearly understood by employers that the mere fact of the servants having acted without authority, or even contrary to orders, will riot so absolve him. Hardly an action for damages through negligence of servants but would fail if this doctrine had a shadow of ground in law, nnd it ia easy to see what a door for shirking responsibilities would be open to an unprincipled employer if such weieheld to be good law. For it would only be necessary for the master to give orders before witnesses that his servants should do, or abstain from doing, certain things, and in the meanwhile the} could easily be made to understand that they would be really furthering their master's interest by pursuing an opposite course. Two actions decided at the late sittings of the District Court absolutely bear on the position we have assumed, if, indeed, any confirmation of it was necessary. In one case a clerk sued, the Union Steam Shipping Company for damages in consequence of injuries nistained through the carelessness of the driver of the donkey engine on one of the Company's steamers. It was found, as a matter of fact, that the driver had bandied his engine carelessly and that the accident had thereby occured. It, would probably have been easy to show that the driver, in acting ns he did, had exceeded, or contravened, his instructions. No such attempt, however, was made, for the very good reason that the Counsel for the defence know that the contention would have been useless.

Another case is still more to the point for which we are contending. We allude to one in which the Tramway Company were sued for injuries sustained by a boy through attempting to get off a train-car while in motion. It was sworn that the conductor ml vised the boy to jump before the car stopped. Now the company have notices on the cars, care fully warning passengers from attempting to alight while the cars are in motion. A fortiori, therefore, must the conductor have been acting contrary to orders when he advised tho boy to alight. But it is needless to remark that the counsel for the company knew a great deal better than to raise such a point, and damages, were given against the defendants.

If anj' employers of labor, then, have formed the mistaken idea that they are not answerable for tho ads of their servants, simply because the latter exceed their instructions, the sooner, for their own safety, they disabuse themselves of it the better. They must not only give proper orders to their servants but see (hat they nre carried out, ond employ none in responsible positions but men who can be trusted to carry out instructions.