with respect to the term of hiring and service, and to the term of notice; and when no agreement inconsistent with such a custom exists, then, as we have already intimated, the engagement will be understood as being subject to the custom. Proof of the custom must, of course, be given to the satisfaction of the court. Thus evidence has been allowed to be given of a custom enabling an employer to dismiss a commercial traveller at three months' notice; of a master in the woollen trade to dismiss an agent at one month's notice; and of various customs with respect to the dismissal of persons employed in the newspaper trade.* Proof might, in the same way, be given of customs regulating the term of engagement, and of notice for workmen or labourers in different employments.

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There is one other point in connection with this part of the subject which it is necessary to bear in mind. Assuming that an engagement is a yearly one, but subject to, say, three months' notice, it is sometimes supposed that this necessarily implies that the notice must be given so as to terminate at the end of one, two, three, or more years from the date of the original hiring. But this is not necessarily so. Unless there is

* We do not give these cases in detail, because some of them are not of recent date, and it may well be that the custom has changed since they were decided; indeed, in some instances, we know that this is so. It would, therefore, only mislead if we were to cite them as establishing that there is at present a particular custom in the trade referred to. All for which they are really authorities is, that, supposing a custom to be proved, it will, in the absence of any specific agreement, govern the engagement.

a distinct stipulation that the notice shall only be given so as to terminate at the time we have mentioned, it would probably be held that a three months' notice might be given at any time. Of course, much would depend on the precise terms of the agreement; but if it is desired that neither master nor servant should have power to give any other notice than one terminating at the end of a current year of the engagement, care should be taken to say so in the most explicit manner.

Whenever a contract is reduced to writing, it behoves both parties to bestow their most careful consideration of its terms, and to make sure that it carries out their intention, for it is a fundamental rule of our common law that oral evidence cannot be given to add to, subtract from, or alter or vary any description of written contract. Oral testimony in aid of insufficient written evidence of a contract is, however, admissible when the contract is not required to be in writing by the Statute of Frauds.* If a written document, for example, amount to a mere admission or acknowledgment of certain facts, forming a link only in the chain of evidence by which a contract is sought to be established, it may be given in evidence concurrently with, and may be aided and supported by, oral testimony. Thus, in the case of a contract for work and services, if the names of the contracting parties are not mentioned, or the price to be paid for the work is not

* It will be recollected (see ante, p. 19) that a contract of hiring and service, to endure for more than a year from the date of its signature, is required to be in writing by the Statute of Frauds.

specified, or the quantity not named, and the writing consequently does not amount to a contract, oral proof of the additional facts and circumstances necessary to constitute a contract and give effect to the transaction is admissible. Moreover, if the parties have used technical terms and words of an unintelligible nature to the ordinary reader, but having a clear, distinct, and definite meaning among mechanics, merchants, &c., evidence of such meaning may be given in aid of the interpretation of the contract, and to give the words their known and proper signification. Customary rights and incidents universall attaching to the subject-matter of the contract, in the place and neighbourhood where the contract is made, are impliedly annexed to the written language and terms of the contract, unless the custom is particularly and expressly excluded. And, in like manner, the known and received usages of particular trades, professions, occupations, and the established course of dealing in them, are considered to be tacitly annexed to the terms of every contract (including one of hiring and service) relating to such trades, &c., if there be no words expressly controlling or excluding the ordinary operation of the usage, and parol evidence of such customs and usages may consequently be brought in aid of the written instrument. Thus, where a workman is hired for a year, to work at a particular trade, under a written agreement, which says nothing as to any period of absence to be allowed to the workman, oral evidence may be given to show that it is the custom of the

"of

particular trade for the workmen employed in it to take certain holidays, and to absent themselves on such occasions from their work without the permission of their master. So, if an agreement for the hire of a domestic servant were silent on the point of notice, the custom as to a month's wages or a month's warning might be incorporated with it; and in one case, parol evidence was allowed to be given to show that, according to the theatrical custom, an engagement for a certain number of years only implied an undertaking to pay the wages of an actress during the "seasons" of those years. It must, however, be distinctly understood that evidence as to custom is only receivable when the contract is silent on the point. No evidence of custom is receivable to contradict or modify any stipulation reduced to writing. But evidence of custom or usage is always admissible to determine the meaning of words used in an agreement, if, by the custom or usage of a particular trade or occupation, those words have acquired, in respect to the subject-matter of the contract, a peculiar sense and meaning different from their popular use. Thus, the word "thousand" in certain trades means 1,200, or, which comes to the same thing, a "hundred" is equivalent to six score. When such is the case, and workmen are paid by the "thousand" or "hundred," the language of the contract will be construed by reference to the custom, if this be not expressly excluded. But then it must be borne in mind that the custom and usage must be general

and universal, and not merely the practice or course of dealing of a particular firm or house of trade.

After an agreement which does not come under the Statute of Frauds has been reduced into writing, it is competent to the parties, at any time before its breach, by a new contract not in writing, either altogether to waive, dissolve, or annul the former agreement, or in any manner to modify, add to, or subtract from, or vary or qualify the terms, and thus to make a new contract, formed partly of the written agreement and partly by the subsequent verbal terms engrafted upon it. An agreement which does come under the Statute of Frauds can only be varied or rescinded by another agreement or memorandum in writing, signed by the party against whom such variation or rescission is sought to be enforced. It follows from this that a contract or agreement of hiring and service, to be performed within a twelvemonth from the time it was entered into, may be varied or rescinded by a subsequent verbal agreement; but that such a contract, when not to be completely performed within the twelvemonth, can only be rescinded or varied by a subsequent agreement in writing.

Persons in trade, in order to stimulate the zeal and activity of their more important employés, often agree to remunerate them, either wholly or partially, by a percentage of profits, either in addition to or in lieu of salary. The remuneration of servants in this mode, however advantageous in some respects, was formerly open to the great objection that, unless extreme care