ORDINANCE No. 12 of 1856.
Chinese Burials and Nuisances.
department invested with or performing duties of a public nature, whether under immediate control of His Excellency or not.
The expression "Lawful Authority" shall extend to and denote any permission which may be lawfully given by a public officer or department or by a private person.
Where no specific description is given of the ownership of any property, the word "Property" shall be taken to apply to all such property of the kinds specified, whether owned by the Crown, by a public department, or by a private person.
2. It shall be lawful for His Excellency in Executive Council from time to time to select and appoint, and by advertisement in the Hongkong Government Gazette to notify, sufficient and proper places to be the sites of, and to be used as, cemeteries or places of burial for the Chinese; and from time to time to alter, vary, and repeal the said notifications by others, to be advertised in the like manner; and in such cemeteries or places it shall be lawful for the Chinese, in conformity with the provisions of the notifications actually in force, to bury their dead, yet so as that any person who shall use for that purpose a grave of less than five feet in depth from the ordinary surface of the ground to the uppermost side of the corpse or coffin therein deposited, shall for every such offence forfeit and pay a sum not exceeding fifty dollars, nor less than five dollars. [Repealed by Ordinance No. 24 of 1887.]
3. His said Excellency in Executive Council is authorized from time to time to notify, by advertisement in the Hongkong Government Gazette, that any Chinese cemetery or burial ground shall, from a time in such notification to be specified, be closed, and the same shall be closed accordingly; and whosoever after the expiration of the said specified time shall bury any corpse in the said cemetery or burial ground shall, for every such offence, forfeit and pay a sum not exceeding one hundred dollars nor less than five. [Repealed by Ordinance No. 24 of 1887.]
4. Whosoever shall bury any corpse or coffin in any ground not being a cemetery or burial ground authorized under this or any other Ordinance, shall (except in cases provided for by section 3 of this Ordinance) for every such his offence forfeit and pay a sum not exceeding one hundred dollars nor less than five. [Repealed by Ordinance No. 24 of 1887.]
5. The penalties in sections 3 and 4 specified shall be deemed to be cumulative and not substituted penalties, in any case where the commission of any of the offences to which the same are applicable shall occasion a nuisance within the meaning of Ordinance No. 8 of 1856, section 14. [Repealed by Ordinance No. 24 of 1887.]
6. The offences next hereinafter specified shall be deemed to be nuisances within the meaning of all laws, at any time in force within this Colony, for the better repression of nuisances, save that the Court
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"Lawful Authority."
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"Property.”
The Governor in Executive Council to appoint sites for Chinese cemeteries, &c.
Power to close Chinese cemeteries.
Penalties on burials elsewhere than in cemeteries, &c.
Further penalties on burials being nuisances, &c.
Nuisances punishable, at the discretion of the Court.