CHAPTER III.

On the Rights and Liberty of the Person, THE Isle of Man is rendered extremely interesting by being a little dependency on Great Britain, retaining its own laws and customs; the more so, now England, Scotland, and Ireland are blended into one government; still preserving its freedom from all internal taxation, while the surrounding nations are almost overwhelmed. Lord Chief-justice Coke observes, that, although this island is no parcel of the realm of England, yet it is part of the dominions of the King, and therefore allegiance is reserved in public oaths; and that its laws are such as are scarce to be found anywhere else.

The isle is divided into two districts, each having a Deemster or chief-justice; into six sheadings or counties, with their respective coroners or sheriffs; and into seventeen parishes.

The subjects under consideration I shall endeavour to arrange as succinctly as possible in

the following order; the rights and liberty of the person; property in general; private wrongs, and their redress; public wrongs, and their punishment.

The Isle of Man cannot boast of any Magna Charta, any Bill of Rights, any Habeas-Corpus act, or any written promise of the sovereign relative to the liberty of the subject.

The infringement of liberty gives rise to laws respecting it. When the government of a country continues long, with little variation, and is not intolerably bad, the people are usually content. The arbitrary acts of John and his predecessors, and the people's wish for their old Saxon government, gave rise to the rebellion of the Barons, the English Magna Charta.

We hear of few vexatious arrests made by the Manks government, and of these few is that of Bishop Wilson. The Lord's officer might imprison any one for a debt due to the Lord; but the causes sufficient for arresting a person were not defined in any act previously to the year 1736, when the Governor or any of the officers was prohibited from arresting a man, except for flagrant breaches of the peace, open riots or

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disturbances, or other notorious misdemeanors, unless evidence on oath was given, relating the complaint or a sufficient cause of suspicion.

It is amusing and instructive to observe the arbitrary and most tyrannical laws made against the lower orders of the people, and to mark their consequences. All persons, having no regular occupation, or not being in a farm, were liable to be taken for servants, and have only such wages as the law allowed. A ploughman was entitled to 13s. 4d. a year, besides meat and drink; a driver to 10s. and a horseman to 8s.: a mason, carpenter, or shipwright, to 4d. a day, and other workmen in proportion. Employers giving more were liable to forfeit to the Lord a sum equal to the whole wages.* The Lord and his officers had the first choice of servants, and might, at the beginning of a half year, even take them away from any of the inhabitants, except the twenty-four Keys.

Children not brought up, or put apprentice, to any trade, were liable to be ordered into service, unless the parent was old or decrepid, and required assistance. In this case, one child might be kept at home, but the parents were

*Statute, 1609.

obliged to give public notice of their intention, in order that no "deemster, moare, coroner, or farmer might expect such choice child, and be disappointed."*

In 1691, the laws were rendered still more severe, and servants refusing to work on the legal terms were to be imprisoned till they consented. In order to encourage foreign artificers, the laws were made relative to Manks work-people only.

The children of the poorer class being thus, by various unjust laws, reduced to a situation much worse than that of their neighbours, were induced by their own choice, and that of their parents, to leave the island: and so frequent was their emigration, that the legislature judged it necessary to interfere once more respecting them. Thus, does it often happen, that one unjust proceeding necessarily brings on another. We learn, by the act of Tinwald, that all the industrious people and the good servants had gone abroad for the sake of higher wages, and that none were left but the drunken, the idle, and the dissolute, who were rather a clog upon the community than any advantage to it. By Statute, 1662.

the practice of such emigration was expected inevitably to ensue the utter decay, not only of husbandry and tillage, but also of all kind of trade, being thus drained of its useful strength and substance.”* It was therefore enacted, that all natives, who had ever done any work for money, clothes, food, or other consideration, should not be permitted to leave the island till they had attained the age of twenty-five years; and had either been seven years in service, or had served an apprenticeship of five years; the Governor, nevertheless, being authorized to grant his licence or pass to any one, on a special cause, by him deemed sufficient.

This was the last of the vain attempts of Government to overturn the natural course of things; for the purpose of the next act upon the subject, passed in the year 1777, was to repeal all former laws respecting servants and their wages, at length found worse than useless, and at that time nearly obsolete. The same act

sets aside several old laws and feudal customs.

A house-servant is supposed to be hired for half a year, when no special agreement is made between the employer and the employed. The * Statute, 1691.