THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 30TH OCTOBER, 1897.
Objects and Reasons.
The Vagrancy Ordinance"(No. 12 of 1888) has not worked in a very satisfactory manner, and, in any case, requires amendment, for the reference to section 3, in section 24, is erroneous, the section intended to be referred to being
section 5.
As, however, it appears desirable that the subject should be contained in one Ordinance, the opportunity has been taken to repeal the old law and re-enact it, with some amendments.
As the present Ordinance embodies most of the sections of Ordinance No. 12 of 1888, it will only be necessary to call attention to such sections as contain material amend- ments or appear to require explanation.
In section 6, power is conferred on the Magistrate to declare not only that a person is a Vagrant, but, where the evidence is such as to justify it, to add that he has been a Vagrant, as defined by the Ordinance, since some prior date. The object of this is to enable prior charges to be recovered, for it sometimes happens that a sick and destitute person is landed in Hongkong, and taken almost at once to the hospital and the Colony is put to considerable expense before he recovers sufficiently to be taken before a Magis- trate and be formally declared a Vagrant.
In section 12, the words "who have completed the first six months of their imprisonment are substituted for the words "whose conduct is good."
This amendment is now necessary to prevent the appli- cation of the penal diet rule (No. 235), which affects long- sentence prisoners during the first six months of their imprisonment but was not intended to apply to Vagrants.
The order of sections 16, 17, 18 and 19 of Ordinance No. 12 of 1888 seemed to require re-arrangement, and sections 16 and 18 to need slight amendment, so as to clearly give the Superintendent the power to enforce the removal of a Vagrant who had entered into the agreement mentioned in the Ordinance. Accordingly, sections 17, 18, 19 and 20 now take the place of the former sections 18, 19, 17 and 16, respectively.
As regards section 21, this is really section 20 of the Ordinance of 1888, broken up so as to make it more intel- ligible, and with this addition, viz., that those who wil- fully or negligently leave an undischarged sailor behind in the Colony, who becomes a Vagrant and chargeable to the Colony, are rendered liable to repay the charges so incurred. By the Ordinance of 1888, the primary liability fell on the owners or agents, where a sailor was discharged here, and became chargeable to the Colony, whereas by this Ordinance the master is rendered primarily liable and the owners, agents, and consignees are only rendered liable (see section 23) on the absence of the master or in cases where such master departs from the Colony without repay- ing such costs and charges.
As regards section 22, this is substituted for section 21 of the Ordinance of 1888 and contains a proviso which relieves the master in cases where the destitute person brought into the Colony is a stowaway and is duly pro- secuted as such. The Stowaways Ordinance (No. 7 of 1897) now confers power on the master to detain such stowaways for such period as is necessary for the purpose of handing them over to the Police.
It is manifestly unjust that Shipowners should bring destitute people into the Colony, benefit by receiving the passage money, and then expect the ratepayers to go to the expense of maintaining such people or of removing them from the Colony. The Stowaways Ordinance now affords sufficient protection where such people surreptitiously obtain a passage to Hongkong.
Section 25 replaces the former section 24 and also pro- vides a simple and convenient mode of primâ facie proof of costs and charges incurred.
W. MEIGH GOODMAN,
Attorney General.
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