c o n t i n u i t y a n d c o n t r ac t 133 ended duty of subordination.The master had the right to chastise workers under a certain age. If the worker had bed and board at his master, he was not allowed to keep his personal everyday clothes and equipment somewhere else. If he ran away, the public authorities should assist the master to get him back.267 An all-pervading feature was that the terms of the labour relationship were principally fixed in advance by legislation. The obligations were often sanctioned by public law punishments. At the same time, the parties to the contract were given a broad frame-work for concretising the general rules. In close connection with the statues on the master-servant contract, up to 1885 the law on vagrancy obliged every poor person to take annual employment at the risk of being treated as a vagrant and placed in forced servitude.268 The Statute on Freedom of Trade of 1864, again, has often been praised for having swept away all special professional requirements for running a trade or craft and the classification into different professional categories. The worker’s duty of obedience was limited to tasks that “belonged to the profession”.At the same time, however, it maintained the tradition froml’ancien régime. Unless the parties had explicitly agreed upon something else, the employer was given a master’s authority over the employee. He should exercise paternal care to make sure that the employee was held in devoutness, orderliness and good morals.The statute of 1864 prescribed criminal sanctions if the worker did not observe his duty to obey the employer’s orders and show him “due respect”.269 Furthermore, the Statute on Freedom of Trade of 1864 referred to the Statute on Hired Servants of 1833 as the fundamental collection of norms from which the parties could depart only by explicit agreement.270 267 The Statutes on Hired Servants are discussed above in part II and part III. 268 SFS 1833:43. 269 SFS 1864:41, sections 15-17, 22.Westerståhl 1945, p. 11; Adlercreutz, A1954, p. 148; Göransson, 1988, p. 87. 270 SFS 1846:39, sections 32, 36, 37; SFS 1864:41, sections 15, 17, 22.
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