KFLCC Kingdom Law 2nd Ed.

1075

SERVANT

SERIATIM

Sermo index animl. 5 Coke, 118. Speech is an index of the mind. Sermo relatus ad personam intelligi debet de conditione personse. Language which is referred to a person ought to be un derstood of the condition of the person. 4 Coke, 16. Sermones semper aecipiendi aunt se cundum subjectam materiam, et oondi tionem personarum. 4 Coke, 14. Lan guage is always to be understood according to its subject-matter, and the condition of the persons. SERPENT-VENOM REACTION. A test for insanity by means of the breaking up of the red corpuscles of the blood of the sus pected person on the injection of the venom of cobras or other serpents; recently employed in judicial proceedings in some European countries and in Japan. SERRATED. Notched on the edge; cut In notches like the teeth of a saw. This was anciently the method of trimming the top or edge of a deed of indenture. See INDENT, V. SERVAGE, in feudal law, was where a tenant, besides payment of a certain rent, found one or more workmen for his lord's service. Tomlins. Servanda est consuetudo loci ubi causa agitur. The custom of the place where the action is brought is to be observed. De couche v. Savetier, 3 Johns. Ch. (N. Y.) 190, 219, 8 Am. Dec. 478. SERVANT. A servant is one who is em ployed to render personal services to his employer, otherwise than in the pursuit of an independent calling, and who in such service remains entirely under the control and direction of the latter, who is called his master. Civ. Code Cal. § 2009. Servants or domestics are those who re ceive wages, and stay in the house of the person paying and employing them for his services or that of his family; such are val ets, footmen, cooks, butlers, and others who reside in the house. Civ. Code La. art. 3205. Free servants are in general all free per sons who let, hire, or engage their services to another in the state, to be employed there in at any work, commerce, or occupation whatever for the benefit of him who has con tracted with them, for a certain price or retribution, or upon certain conditions. Civ. Code La. art. 163. Servants are of two kinds,—menial serv ants, being persons retained by others to live within the walls of the house, and to per form the work and business of the house hold; and persons employed by men of trades and professions under them, to assist them in their particular callings. Mozley & Whit ley. See, also, Flesh v. Lindsay, 115 Mo. 1,

SERIATIM. Lat Severally; separately; Individually; one by one. SERIOUS. Important; weighty; moment ens, and not trifling; as in the phrases "seri ous bodily harm," "serious personal injury," etc. Lawlor v. People, 74 111. 231; Union Mut L. Ins. Co. v. Wilkinson, 13 Wall. 230, 20 I* Ed. 617. SERJEANT. The same word etymologic ally with "sergeant," but the latter spelling Is more commonly employed in the designa tion of military and police officers, (see SEB GEANT,) while the former is preferred when the term is used to describe certain grades of legal practitioners and certain officers of legislative bodies. See infra. -Common serjeant. A judicial officer at tached to the corporation of the city of London, who assists the recorder in disposing of the criminal business at the Old Bailey sessions, or central criminal court. Brown.— Serjeant at arms. An executive officer appointed by, and attending on, a legislative < body, whose prin cipal duties are to execute its warrants, pre serve order, and arrest offenders.— Serjeant at law. A barrister of the common-law courts of high standing, and of much the same rank as a doctor of law is in the ecclesiastical courts. These Serjeants seem to have derived their title from the old knights templar, (among whom there existed a peculiar class under the denomination of "frdre» sergens," or "fratres tervientes") and to have continued as a separ ate fraternity from a very early period in the history of the legal profession. The barristers who first assumed the old monastic title were those who practiced in the court of common pleas, and until a recent period (the 25th of April, 1834, 9 & 10 Vict. c. 54) the Serjeants at law always had the exclusive privilege of practice in that court. Every judge of a com mon-law court, previous to his elevation to the bench, used to be created a serjeant at law; but since the judicature act this is no longer necessary. Brown.— Serjeant of the mace. In English law. An officer who attends the lord mayor of London, and the chief magistrates of other corporate towns. Holthouse.— Ser jeants' Inn. The inn to which the Serjeants at law belonged, near Chancery lane; formerly called "Faryndon Inn." Serjeantia idem est quod servitium. Co. Litt. 105. Serjeanty is the same as serv ice. SERJEANTY. A species of tenure >by knight service, which was due to the king only, and was distinguished into grand and petit serjeanty. The tenant holding by grand serjeanty was bound, instead of attending the king generally in his wars, to do some honorary service to the king in person, as to carry his banner or sword, or,to be his but ler, champion, or other officer at his corona tion. Petit serjeanty differed from grand serjeanty, in that the service rendered to the king was not of a personal nature, but con sisted in rendering him annually some small implement of war, as a bow, sword, arrow, lance, or the like. Cowell; Brown. SERMENT. In old English law. Oath; an oath. ,