Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c8.173

c8.173

The obligation to pay compensation for every kind of injury is recognised in the fullest extent and the evidence for it may be found in what has been said above. Thus the owners must be compensated also for killed household animals, felled trees, torn or injured plants, expenses of treatment must be paid for wounded men or household animals, destroyed or injured walls, dikes, houses must be reconstructed and defiled roads shall be wiped clean (Vi. 5, 51, 59, 75 f., 106—109 etc.). We find included herein also the compensation which a metal-worker working in iron, copper, lead, tin, silver or gold, has to pay to the owner of these metals who gives these to him to prepare utensils from, for the loss in smelting when it exceeds the usual amount of loss in smelting as known from experience as well as the compensation of a weaver for the yarn woven by him, rendered heavier or more valuable in the process (Nār. 9, 12—15; Y. 2, 178; M. 8, 397). In the case of a washerman it is assumed that the linen loses 1/8 of its original value at the first washing, 1/4 at the second etc. and therefore the washerman has to make good to his customers every loss which exceeds this amount (Nār 9, 8f.). It is therefore in his own interest to wash the linen as carefully as possible on a board of soft wood (M. 8, 396).