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Children below the Age of Six on 1st August 1834, or born after that Time to any Female Apprentice, if destitute, may be bound out by any Special Magistrate as an Apprentice to the Person entitled to the Services of the Mother.
Indentures to continue in force until the Child has completed 21st Year.
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XIII. ‘And whereas it may happen that Children who have not attained the Age of Six Years on the said First Day of August One thousand eight hundred and thirty-four, or that Children who after that Day may be born to any Female apprenticed Labourers, may not be properly supported by their Parents, and that no other Person may be disposed voluntarily to undertake the Support of such Children; and it is necessary that Provision should be made for the Maintenance of such Children in any such Contingency;’ be it therefore enacted, That if any Child who on the said First Day of August One thousand eight hundred and thirty-four had not completed his or her Sixth Year, or if any Child to which any Female apprenticed Labourer may give birth on or after the said First Day of August One thousand eight hundred and thirty-four, shall be brought before any Justice of the Peace holding any such Special Commission as herein-after mentioned, and if it shall be made to appear to the Satisfaction of such Justice that any such Child is unprovided with an adequate Maintenance, and that such Child hath not completed his or her Age of Twelve Years, it shall be lawful for such Justice, and he is hereby required, on behalf of any such Child, to execute an Indenture of Apprenticeship, thereby binding such Child as an apprenticed Labourer to the Person or Persons entitled to the Services of the Mother of such Child, or who had been last entitled to the Services of such Mother; but in case it shall be made to appear to any such Justice that such Person or Persons aforesaid is or are unable or unfit to enter into such Indenture, and properly to perform the Conditions thereof, then it shall be lawful for such Justice and he is hereby required by such Indenture to bind any such Child to any other Person or Persons to be by him for that Purpose approved, and who may be willing and able properly to perform such Conditions; and it shall by every such Indenture of Apprenticeship be declared whether such Child shall thenceforward belong to the Class of attached prædial apprenticed Labourers, or to the Class of unattached prædial apprenticed Labourers, or to the Class of non-prædial apprenticed Labourers; and the Term of such Apprenticeship of any such Child shall by such Indenture be limited and made to continue in force until such Child shall have completed his or her Twenty-first Year, and no longer; and every Child so apprenticed as aforesaid by the Order of any such Justice of the Peace as aforesaid shall during his or her Apprenticeship be subject to all such and the same Rules and Regulations respecting the Work or Labour to be by them done or performed, and respecting the Food and other Supplies to be to him or her furnished, as any other such apprenticed Labourers as aforesaid: Provided always, that the said Indenture of Apprenticeship shall contain sufficient Words of Obligation upon the Employer to allow reasonable Time and Opportunity for the Education and Religious Instruction of such Child.
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