Amendment
120
4. Section 19 of the principal Ordinance is amended of Ordinance by the addition of the following sub-section after the words
«aid such purpose" in paragraph (2)—
No. 4 of 1897,
s. 19.
Amendment
or (3) receives or harbours any woman or girl with intent that she shall be sold, pledged, let out to hire, purchased, taken in pledge, taken on hire or otherwise disposed of for the purpose of prostitution either within or without the Colony.
5 Section 26 of the principal Ordinance is amended by of Ordinance the substitution of the figures 21" for the figures
18" No. 4 of 1897, in the second line thereof.
s. 26.
Objects and Reasons.
The existing law has been found inadequate for the pur- pose of dealing with the serions offence of the abduction of unmarried girls. This is due to two reasons. In the first place the present section applies only where the girl has been taken out of the possession of her parent or guardian. It is believed that many girls get lost or ran away from their homes and are then picked up by the kidnappers. In the second place it is necessary under the existing law for the prosecution to prove that the accused knew that the girl had been taken away from her parent or guardian against the will of the parent or guardian. This is gene- rally very difficult to prove. The girl is generally either an unintelligent or an unwilling witness, and the facts relating to her leaving her home are often known to no one in the Colony except to herself and to the accused.
Clause 3 of the bill alters the law on these two points. It makes it an offence to harbour an unmarried girl who has left her parents or guardians without their consent, as well as to harbour a girl who has been taken out of the possession of her parents or guardians. It also throws on the accused, once it is proved that he knowingly harboured the girl, the onus of proving that he did not know that she left her parent or guardian without the consent of the parent or guardian.
It has also been thought advisable to raise the age in the case of this offence to 21 years. This amendment, by clause 5 of the bill, is also made in section 26 of the prin- cipal Ordinance.
The age is also raised to 21 in the case of offences under sub-section (1) of section 4 of the principal Ordinance.
The opportunity has been taken to transfer paragraph 2 of section 18 of the principal Ordinance to section 19 of that Ordinance, to which it appears more properly to belong.
J. H. KEMP,
Attorney General.
30th January, 1917.
NOTICES.
COLONIAL SECRETARY'S DEPARTMENT.
No. S. 71.-Statement of Sanitary Measures adopted against Hongkong.
Place of Port
Nature of Measures.
Reference
Date.
to Govern- ment Noti- fication.
Dairen.
Bangkok.
Quarantine restrictions against all ships arriving at Dairen or Port Arthur from or by way of Canton and all other South-China ports.
Hongkong declared a suspected port on account of small-pox. All vessels leaving Hongkong for Bangkok after 13th December, 1916, should call at Kohphra to be examined.
31st August, 1916. No. S. 194.
13th December, No. S. 302.
1916.
A