The statute provided for a regular form of contract between master and servant, which was understood to include all of the above stipulations unless otherwise provided. APPRENTICE LAWS The early legislatures also made detailed apprentice laws. Although it is scarcely open to argument that, in making such laws, they did not have in mind primarily Negroes, still many of the statutes made no mention of race, and, therefore, cannot be properly discussed here. Thus, Alabama[106] had a long statute on apprentices, but the only reference to the Negro was the rule that, if the minor be a child of a freedman, the former owner of the child should have the preference of apprenticing him, if a suitable person. In Kentucky,[107] if the apprentice was white, the master must teach him reading, writing, and common arithmetic up to and including the “Rule of Three”; if a Negro, the master must pay at the end of the apprenticeship fifty dollars to a girl and one hundred dollars to a boy, but if the master should teach the apprentice to read and write, he was not bound to pay any money. In Kentucky, also, in apprenticing Negroes, preference was given to their former owners, if the latter were suitable persons. Mississippi[108] had an elaborate apprentice law which related only to freedmen, free Negroes, and mulattoes. The sheriffs, justices of the peace, and other civil officers of the county had to report to the probate court semiannually, in January and July, the names of all freedmen, free Negroes, and mulattoes, under the age of eighteen, who where orphans or whose parents were unable or unwilling to support them. It was the duty of the court, thereupon, to order the apprenticing of such minors, preference being given to their former masters if suitable persons. The master had to furnish a bond payable to the State conditioned upon his furnishing the minor with sufficient food and clothing, treating him humanely, giving him medical attention when sick, and, if the minor was under fifteen, teaching him or having him taught to read and write. Males were bound till they were twenty-one; females, till they were eighteen. The master could inflict moderate corporal chastisement as a father or guardian might do; but in no case could he inflict cruel or inhuman punishment.