ORDINANCES Nos. 4 AND 5 OF 1883.
Excise (Opium).
Vehicles and Public Traffic.
4. From and after the passing of this Ordinance no person shall be permitted to open smoking divans or keep open those already existing without a licence under a penalty on summary conviction thereof before a Police Magistrate of five hundred dollars or a term of imprisonment with or without hard labour not exceeding six months—and all smoking divans shall be divided into classes. The 1st class shall consist of those where boiled or prepared opium is smoked—and the 2nd class shall consist of those where only dross opium or opium prepared from opium dross alone is smoked.
It shall be lawful for the Governor in Council to farm out the privilege of keeping one or other or both classes of smoking divans on such terms and conditions as may seem to the Governor in Council expedient, and the grantee or grantees shall be empowered to grant licences to separate keepers. In the event of there being no holder of the grant the Colonial Secretary is hereby empowered to grant licences and to revoke the same on such terms and conditions as he may think fit.
[Repealed by Ordinance No. 1 of 1884.]
1677
Unlicensed smoking divans
Opium dross farmer or Colonial Secretary may grant licences for smoking divans.
No. 5 of 1883.
An Ordinance entitled, The Vehicles and Public Traffic Ordinance, 1883.
B
[24th March, 1883.]
Be it enacted by the Governor of Hongkong, with the advice of the Legislative Council thereof, as follows:
1. In this Ordinance the term vehicle includes chairs, carriages, trucks, jinrickshas, and carts of every kind.
2. No vehicle shall ply or be let for hire for the carriage of passengers, unless the owner thereof has obtained a licence for the same, and no person shall act as bearer, drawer or driver of such vehicle until he has obtained a licence to do so. Licences shall be granted by the Captain Superintendent of Police.
3. Licences granted under this Ordinance shall be for the carriage of passengers; and no licensed owner, bearer, drawer, or driver, shall use his vehicle, for the carriage of animals, merchandise, or goods other than personal baggage.
4. The Governor in Council may make and, when made, revoke, add to, or alter rules regulating the granting and revocation of licences under this Ordinance, and the fees to be paid in respect of the same.
5. Any breach of this Ordinance or of any rules made under it shall be an offence punishable in a summary manner, and the offender shall be liable, on conviction before a Police Magistrate, to a fine not exceeding twenty-five dollars, or to imprisonment, with or without hard labour, not exceeding three months.
Subject to this Ordinance and to rules made under it, the Captain Superintendent of Police may in his discretion revoke any licence granted by him.