________________
NARADA.
VI, 5.
may have been entrusted to them for their business, they shall employ with due care and not neglect them wantonly.
140
*5. If one fails to perform such work as he had promised to do, he shall be compelled to perform it, first paying him his wages. If he does not perform it after having taken wages, he must pay back twice the amount of his wages.
6. One who abandons merchandise which he had agreed to convey to its destination, shall give a sixth part of the wages. (An employer) who does not pay the wages which he had agreed to give shall forfeit those wages together with interest. A merchant who does not take a conveyance
* 7.
used for agriculture. It appears from the preceding paragraph that business of every sort is intended. Yâgñavalkya II, 193.
5. Manu VIII, 215; Âpastamba II, 11, 28, 2-3; Vishnu V, 153, 154; Yagnavalkya II, 193.
6. The Ratnakara refers the second half of this paragraph, like the first half, to the special case of wages or hire promised to the carrier for the transport of goods. See Colebrooke's Digest, III, 1, 92. Yâgnavalkya II, 198.
7. 'A conveyance,' a cart or the like. 'Beasts for draught or burden,' horses or others. When a man hires the conveyance, &c. of another for the purpose of transporting merchandise, and does not transport the merchandise afterwards, because he has promised to pay an excessive hire, he shall pay a fourth part of the promised hire to the owner of the conveyance. When, however, he takes the conveyance and leaves it, after having completed one half of the journey, he shall have to pay the whole of the hire. Vîramitrodaya, p. 420. Yagnavalkya II, 198. Of vv. 6, 7, the Nepalese MS. has an entirely different version, as follows: *6. One who abandons his work before the expiration of the term, forfeits his wages. If it is through the fault of his employer that he strikes work, he shall be rewarded for as much as has been finished by him. 7. He who leaves on the road that which he had undertaken to transport, shall give a sixth part of the (stipulated) wages. An employer who does not pay (wages) after having set the workman to work, (shall be
Digitized by
Google
