Such is the bill of sale. But as it generally happens that the parents
have also sold themselves, some other security is required, which is
given in another paper. The value of anything that the slave may break
or destroy is added to the original account.
The masters are bound to furnish their slaves with rice and fish daily,
but not with clothes.
The position of the slaves by birth differs in no respect from that of
slaves by purchase, with the exception that while the prices of the
latter vary, the price of the former is fixed by law for every age,
size, and sex, and the owners cannot demand more for them than that
which is determined by the law.
The severest punishment for slaves is being made to work in chains. If
no improvement takes place from this punishment, the slave is handed
over to the king's judges, and is, provided the crime or misdemeanor is
proven, incarcerated in the Siamese convict prison,--a punishment to
which death itself is preferable.
The principal hardship that the slave suffers is being obliged to marry
at the will of his or her owner, and this with a people who are highly
susceptible of conjugal affection is often the cause of great suffering
to the women.
Then comes the difficulty of lodging a complaint against their masters
for an insufficiency of food, and sometimes for an absolute want
of clothes, for which latter even the law does not hold the master
responsible.
There are four conditions under which a slave is freed from the
obligations of servitude,--slaves voluntarily manumitted by their
masters; slaves admitted to the priesthood; those who are given to
serve the priests; and when the master himself takes the vows of a
priest, he is obliged to free all his slaves, as the ecclesiastical
court will not otherwise receive him into the priesthood, and he can
at no time reclaim them for actual service, unless on quitting the
priesthood he repurchases them.
Debtors may be made slaves when they do not pay the interest for money
borrowed, and will not work to make good the failure of payment; and in
case of death the nearest relative becomes a slave till the original
amount, with the interest added, is refunded. The rate of interest
in Siam is about thirty per cent, and the poor are unable, unless by
labor, to pay such an exorbitant rate.
If the bought or rather the redeemable slave should die in his master's
service,--even after a lifetime of labor,--the security must refund the
original sum or become a slave in his stead. If a slave be sick, and is
attended to during his illness in his master's house, the security is
liable for the interest of the slave's purchase-money during the period
of illness. When children are sold under the full value, they must not
be beaten till they bleed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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