Absconding Apprentice

Businesses often invest substantial sums in training. These days, though, they tend not to pursue employees who leave. That wasn't always the case, as this advertisement from the Aberdeen Journal of 26 May 1800 shows:

AN APPRENTICE ELOPED, and a REWARD OFFERED for APPREHENDING HIM

JAMES ANDERSON, Apprentice as a Cooper to the Spey Salmon Fishing Company, ran off from his service at Speymouth, on the 14th of May current. He was born at Urquhart, in the county of Elgin, is about 21 years of age, five feet five inches high, fair complexion, and pitted with the small pox. He wore long tied hair, and had on when he went away, a short duffle grey coat, blue trowsers, and a striped vest. Whoever can give information concerning him to Mr Tod, at Fochabers, or Mr Pringle, at Tugnet, by Fochabers, shall, upon his being apprehended, receive a REWARD of TEN GUINEAS.

​It is supposed that he went towards Aberdeen, and that he had an intention of enlisting as a soldier. But after this public notice, it is entreated and expected, that no recruiting officer will receive him; because, in consequence of his indenture, of which there are still some years to run, he may be apprehended and taken back from the army or navy.

It's worth remembering this if you find an ancestor who was an apprentice - they would generally have been taken on through an indenture, which put significant obligations on the apprentices. Their employers weren't known as masters for nothing ...