other blow out his own brains. He communicated
this intention to a gentleman almost as poor
as himself, who advised him to threaten the
administration of the gambling bank with his intention.
The young man tried the experiment, and
it answered; he did not receive the four
hundred florins asked for, but at least three
hundred and fifty.

A poor young man from Berlin shot himself
behind the Kurhaus. A Homburg demon, who
was sitting at his wine after the play had finished
for the day, heard the report, and said, "Again
some one pops off without taking post-horses."

MORE VERY COMMON LAW.

Now as to the law of domestics. To speak
again in general terms, a hiring is a hiring for a
year, but (as Mr. Blank is probably aware) in
the case of domestic servants the law construes
a hiring to be determinable by payment of a
month's wage, or the giving of a month's warning.

Assuming Mr. Blank's information upon this
point, however, we are still at liberty to doubt
his ability to define who in the eye of the law is
a domestic servant liable to dismissal at a
month's notice, and who a servant only to be
discharged at the expiration of a year's service.
It is quite possible that he may consider his
governess, for example, to be a domestic servant
liable to the former contingency. The law,
however, is of a different opinion. " The position
which a governess holds," said Chief Baron
Pollock, in giving his judgment upon this
question, " the station she occupies in a family,
and the manner in which such a person is usually
treated in society, certainly place her in a very
different position from that which mere menial
and domestic servants hold. So far, therefore,"
continued the learned baron—it may be with a
touch of irony—" so far as the question is to be
treated as a matter of law, a governess does not
fall within that rule."

Neither, whatever might be Mr. Blank's
opinion to the contrary, does a clerk come
within the category of a domestic servant. On
the other hand, however, as appears from the
following reported case, a gardener was
adjudged to be a menial servant and treated
accordingly. The gardener referred to entered
into a gentleman's service as head gardener.
On engaging him, his employer inquired
"What wages am I to give you?" and received
for answer, " I shall not come from Kew without
one hundred pounds." This having been agreed
to, nothing further was said as to notice, and
the florist occupied a house in the grounds, took
apprentices, and had five gardeners under him.
Not giving satisfaction, however, his master
gave him a month's warning, and the courts
subsequently confirmed the proceeding, thus
treating him as a menial servant.

As a matter of course, this question of dismissal
may be materially influenced by the fact
of a servant grossly misconducting himself.
Under such circumstances, the master is always
at liberty to dismiss the servant, and, moreover,
without burdening him with any wage due
subsequent to the last day of payment.

It has been decided that if a master has a
good ground of dismissal against his servant,
and afterwards discharges him for an
insufficient cause, the servant cannot object that
the offence for which he ostensibly loses his
situation is not of sufficient gravity to warrant
such a proceeding. As Lord Denman has it,
"It is not necessary that a master, having a
good ground of dismissal, should either state it
to the servant or act upon it. It is sufficient
if it exist, and there be improper conduct in.
fact."

To come to a more particular definition of the
offences which will justify Mr. Blank in discharging
his servant, we may mention wilful
disobedience of orders, moral misconduct, or
habitual neglect, with a convenient et cetera,
upon which some little light may be thrown by
the following cases:

A clerk asserted a claim to be his master's
partner, which piece of presumption his master
did not agree to. The claim was made in good
faith and respectful language, but it resulted
in the ambitious clerk's dismissal, and the court
confirmed the proceeding.

In giving judgment, Mr. Justice Littledale
says, " The plaintiff (the clerk) disclaimed being
a servant. If the defendant (the master) had
suffered him to go on in the employment after
that, the nature of his situation might have been
doubtful to those who dealt at the house, and
there might have been evidence for a jury that
the clerk was really a partner."

Again: the fact of one servant assisting
another to leave his master's service, and take
ship to America, was held sufficient ground for
dismissal.

There is another case, also, in which a clerk
who had charge of the minute-books of a
company, and being requested to enter a minute of
his own dismissal, supplemented a gratuitous
protest in the margin of the book. This was
deemed sufficient to put the matter of dismissal
beyond question.

Occasionally the law is called upon to deal
somewhat harshly when treating of this matter,
as we may gather from the following leaf culled
from the Reports:

A housemaid, hearing that her mother was
dangerously ill, asked permission of her master
to be absent for one night, in order to visit her.
The master refused, but the housemaid, taking
that permission which is usually styled French
(Notes and Queries must tell us why), absented
herself for that night and the following day.
On her return the master dismissed her, whereupon
she brought an action for wrongful dismissal.
The court decided against her. We
rather think the court deemed it a hard case,
but considered that they had to deal with
legal and not moral obligations. "We are
to decide," said Baron Alderson, who was
one of the judges in court, " according to the