EMPLOYMENT OF AN ENGINEER 19 



placed as to authenticate and govern every part of the writing. 

 The signature of an agent is sufficient, provided he is some 

 third person, and not the other contracting party. 



6. Time for payment. The agreement should state 

 specifically the times when salary is to be paid, i.e., whether 

 quarterly or half-yearly. If no time is stated in the case of 

 an agreement to serve at a yearly salary, each year's salary 

 can be recovered at the end of the year. 



Where the salary is a lump sum payable by quarterly instal- 

 ments, the instalments can be recovered as they fall due. So 

 where a man was employed as consulting engineer, for 500, 

 payable in equal quarterly instalments, for fifteen months, to 

 complete certain works, and he died after two instalments 

 became due, but before the work was finished, his adminis- 

 trator was held entitled to recover the two instalments (Stubbs 

 v. Holywell Ry. Co., 1867, L. R. 2 Ex. 311). 



7. Obligation to keep a man employed. Those who are 

 under a contract of service sometimes have to complain not of 

 having too much, but of having too little to do. The question 

 has arisen in several cases whether an employer is under any 

 obligation to find work. In one of these a foreign traveller 

 was employed at a salary of 500 and 35s. a day for travelling 

 expenses. By reason of bad trade his employers were 

 compelled to give up their foreign custom, and the traveller 

 was kept at home at his full salary. He then claimed damages 

 because the defendants did not send him travelling, but kept 

 him idle, thereby inflicting injury on the goodwill of his 

 travelling connection, and because he was not able to save 

 anything out of his travelling expenses. It was held that 

 the defendants were not under any obligation to do more than 

 pay him the salary of 500 and that the action was unfounded 

 (Lagerwall v. Wilkinson, 80 L. T. 55). 



In Turner v. Goldsmith, 1891, 1 Q. B. 544, it was decided that 

 where a man employs another for a fixed period to work on 

 commission, he must provide him a reasonable amount of work. 

 There the defendant, a shirt manufacturer, by contract in 

 writing agreed to employ the plaintiff, and the plaintiff agreed 

 to serve the defendant as agent, canvasser, and traveller on 

 the terms, first, that the agency should be determinable by 

 either party at the end of five years by notice ; secondly, that 



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