184
LEGISLATION
$50,000 and imprisonment for 10 years to a fine of $100,000 and imprisonment for 15 years.
Lifts and Escalators (Safety) Ordinance. This Ordinance is designed to ensure, as far as possible, that lifts and escalators are maintained in safe working order. It had long been felt that the legislation that had existed before the enactment of this Ordinance was inadequate and the vast increase in the number of lifts in use in the Colony emphasized the need for more comprehensive provisions. The requirements of this Ordinance with regard to the maintenance, examinations and testing of lifts demand no more of lift-owners than responsible owners were already under- taking, and it was therefore prepared to conform as closely as possible to the practice already adopted by such lift-owners. It provides for the keeping of registers of lift and escalator engineers; for the examination of new lifts and escalators; for testing safety equipment provided for them; for periodic maintenance and examination and for the issuing of certificates by registered engineers.
Public Health and Urban Services Ordinance. This Ordinance, the most complex of all those enacted during the year, is designed to bring up-to-date the existing legislation concerned with public health, which was formerly contained in seven separate Ordinances. Many of its provisions have been modelled on United Kingdom legislation. Broadly, they are concerned with public health and the maintenance of a proper standard of sanitation and cleanliness, offensive trades, food and drugs, markets and hawkers, over- crowding in tenements, ventilation of buildings such as cinemas, theatres, restaurants, public dance halls and dancing schools, and cemeteries, and with advertisements so far as they may affect the safety of sea or air navigation, or constitute a fire hazard.
Mental Health Ordinance. This Ordinance replaced the Mental Health Ordinance, Chapter 136, with a comprehensive Ordinance dealing with all aspects of the detention, custody, care and treatment of mentally disordered persons and the management of their property. It also provides for a new class of patient, the 'temporary patient', and the definition of 'voluntary patient' is extended to include persons under the age of 16 years. This is in conformity with modern mental health practice which requires that a patient should be certified only if no other method of