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Scottish Court of Session Decisions >>
Reid v Scot of Harden and his Lady. [1687] Mor 9505 (13 January 1687)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/scot/cases/ScotCS/1687/Mor2309505-054.html Cite as:
[1687] Mor 9505
Sponsiones ludicræ. - Game Debt. - Premium for procuring a Wife. - Private Lotteries.
Reid v. Scot of Harden and his Lady
Date: 13 January 1687 Case No. No 54.
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Reid the mountebank pursues Scot of Harden and his Lady, for stealing away from him a little girl, called the tumbling-lassie, that danced upon his stage; and he claimed damages, and produced a contract, whereby he bought her from her mother for L. 30 Scots. But we have no slaves in Scotland, and mothers cannot sell their bairns; and physicians attested the employment of tumbling would kill her; and her joints were now grown stiff, and she declined to return; though she was at least a prentice, and so could not run away from her master; yet some cited Moses' law, that if a servant shelter himself with thee against his master's cruelty, thou shalt surely not deliver him up. The Lords renitenti Cancellario assoilzied Harden on the 27th of January.
