FREE LABOUR AND CONTRACT. 495 



his train some ten or twelve who follow him, some as journey 

 men, who expect payment from him.&quot; 



But like many other institutions the institution of free 

 labour or hired labour, in its developed form, arises indirect 

 ly as a sequence of social aggregation caused by conquests, 

 occurring after there has been reached an agricultural state 

 and a growth of population. The process is one which, while 

 it consolidates groups, incidentally produces a class of de 

 tached individuals. We have evidence that this happened 

 among ancient peoples. Though work among them was 

 mostly done by slaves, yet some of it was done by freemen. 

 Hired labour was customary with the Egyptians, according 

 to Ebers. &quot; Ethiopians who want to be hired were freely 

 admitted on the southern frontier. 7 Brugsch says that in 

 addition to the slave-population &quot; a whole world of busy 

 artisans worked for daily wages.&quot; There is evidence that in 

 Babylonia, too, the same institution existed. On a table of 

 laws it is said: &quot;A certain man s brother-in-law hired 

 [workmen] and built an inclosure on his foundation.&quot; So, 

 likewise, was it among the Hebrews. The hiring cf servants, 

 or working men, for long periods is frequently alluded to, 

 e. g., JEcdus. vii. 20, xxxvii. 11, and elsewhere; and in 

 Deuteronomy xxiv. 14, there is the injunction &quot; Thou 

 shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, 

 whether he be of thy brethren, or of thy strangers that are 

 in thy land within thy gates.&quot; And that besides the ruling 

 classes and the slave-classes in Greece and Rome, there ex 

 isted free classes containing labourers, is manifest on remem 

 bering that in Athens a considerable part of the population 

 consisted of immigrant foreigners carrying on commerce, 

 and that in Rome, beyond the class of freemen proper, some 

 of whom must have been by impoverishment reduced to the 

 working class, there were also the freed-men, the mass of 

 whom, of course, had no alternative but to maintain them 

 selves by use of head or hands. 



