December 9, 1899.]
be sent to the Secretary of the Sanitary Board three clear days before the work is commenced." Section 83 of the Ordinance (which is the Public Health Ordinance, 1887) enacts that any person contravening any provision of (inter alia), any Bye-Law made thereunder, shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding fifty dollars or in default of payment, to imprisonment not exceeding three months. It is not disputed that the Bye-Law❘ was contravened, and the Magistrate holding the Hongkong Land Investment and Agency Com- pany, Limited, to be the owner within the mean- ing of the Bye-Law inflicted a fine of $10 in respect of cach house. upon the appellant. It appeared that the premises in question were all of them occupied by more than one family and were held under a Crown Lease by the Hongkong Land Investment and Agency Com- pany Limited, and that the appellant was Boorstary of such Company It also appeared that, by an agreement for lease dated the 20th December, 1898, the Company agreed to under- lease the said premises to one Chin Wa for five years from 1st January, 1899, at the rent therein mentioned, and it was agreed that such lease should contain a covensut on the part of the said Chin Wa to keep the said premises in good and substantial condition and re- pair, including all limewashing or other re- parations required by the Government the Sanitary Board, and that, until the execu-
or
CHINA ÖVÉRLAND TRADE REPORT.
several cases were cited on both sides, but the difficulty is that the definition of "owner" in the Acts of Parliament under which those cases were decided is not precisely the same as the definition in our Public Health Ordinance in Hongkong, and therefore, one, in reality, derives very little assistance from such cases.
It seems to me that the first three words, viz., "Any house-owner," ar fatal to the con- tentention of the Company. Her Majesty grants a lease for 999 years of this land to the Company, the houses are built and the Com- pany becomes the owner of the houses, is the *house-owner.'
in
The fact that the Company sub-lets these houses, on certain conditions, for a term of five years at a rent of $450 a month does not make the Company cease to be the owner. The house-owner has sub-let to a teuant who while collecting rent from the occupier, himself also pays a rent to the owner, i.e., the Company. I am, therefore, of opinion that the Company is the house-owner and comes within the definition of "owner," and the question we are asked mast be answered accordingly.
177
dismissed with costs.
In all the circumstances the appeal must be
Mr. Justice Wise-I have had an opportuni- ty of perusing the judgement and I conour with it. I only just add that at the conclusion of the hearing of the argument I made some remarks that the Court might consider the advisability of expressing their opinion as to whether the right person had been convicted or not, but after considering the father circums- tances of the case I am inclined to think we are not required to do that.
Mr. J. J. Francis, Q. C. (instructed by Messrs. Deacon and Hastings) appeared for the appellant and the Hon. H. E. Pollock (Acting Attorney-General), instructed by Messrs. Dennys and Bowley, for the respondent.
7th November
IN BANKRUPTCY JURISDICTION. BEFORE HIS HONOUR W. Mɛiga GoodMAN (ACTING CHIFr Justion.)
RE B. KHAN.
It is important to bear in mind that the case, only requested our opinion on that one specific point. There is nothing before us to show that
Mr. Brutton appeared on behalf of the debtor the Appellant took or desired to take, be-
who is a watchmaker emyloyed at No. 6, fore the Magistrate, the objection that even if Queens Road Central, who applied that a such decision would not justify fiuing the Sec-ing to guarantee the payment of so much per the Company should be held liable as
11 "' owner
receiving order be made in respect of his estate. His employer (Mr. Girault was will. retary of the Company, but the Company it self should have been summoned and fined. I
month to the Official Receiver in respect of this mention this, because when the case came be- bankraptey. The debts amounted to a little fore the Court, on the argument of the question
over $1,000, and the debtor's estate consisted of law submitted, the Appellant's Counsel be- simply of his salary from his employer. There gan to raise this objection as if it had been a
was $930 judgment and a tailor's bill. Execation point on which our opinion was asked by the
had been issued against him in resp: ct of the $930.
case.
tion of the lease, the said premises should be held by the said Chin Wa subject to the coven. ants and conditions to be contained in the said lease. The agreement also provided that the lease should contain a provision that if the Company or their assigns sold the premises they might determine the lease on or after 31st March. 1901, on giving Chin Wa three calendar months' notice. There was also to be a proviso for re-entry for non-payment of In Purkis v Huxtable, 28 Law Journal, rent or breach of any of the covenants This Magistrate's Cases, p. 221, when a similar agreement for lease was duly registered at the course was adopted, the Court said "This point Land Office in February, 1899, and Chin Wa cannot now be made, as it was not raised when was in possession under such agreement and re- the hearing took place before the Justices." ceived and collected the rents from the occupiers. In the case of the Overseers of St James, West- The cleausing and limewashing not having been minster . Overseers of St. Mary, Battersea, done, although notice was given to the appel- 29 Law Journal Magistrate's Cases, p. 26, the lant on 18th September last, the question arises same view was taken; Williams J., at p. 29, as to the person responsible for this omission. saying, "There was another question on which Is the Company “the owner" within the mean- we were requested to give our opinion. It was ing of the Bye-Law or is the sub-lessee, Chin not submitted to us by the Magistrates aud Wa, the person to be deemed the owner? It therefore we have no power to comply with the was contended before the Magistrate on behalf request that has been made to us." In Knight of the appellant that the word "owner," as de- a. "Halliwell, Law Reports, 9 Queen's Beach, fined by section 3 (13) of the P-blic Health Or- p. 412, a distinction seems to have been made by dinance, means owner in possession, that is the Cockbarn C J and Blackburn, and Lush J. J., in person entitled to roceipt of the rents immedi- cases where a fatal legal objection appeared on the ately from the occupiers, and did not mean a case as stated, of a kind which could not have person only entitled to the reversion expect- been amended or rectified, if taken b fore the ant upon the determination of a lease for years, Magistrate. In that case the proceedings were and the case of Cook v. Montague, Law Re- taken more than twelve months after tue date porta, 7 Queen's Bench, p. 418, was cited in mentioned in the notice, though the legislature support of that coutention. The Magistrate, hud expressly limited the time for taking such however, decided that the word "Owner" 84 proceedings to a period within twelve months defined by the Ordinance did not bear such a The Judges pointed out that under section of restricted meaning and that the Company was the Statute 20 and 21 Victoria c 43, the act "Owner" of the premises in question withiu ander which the case was stated, they had the meaning of the statutory definition. The
power to take a stice of this fatal point, although case submitted to the Court proceeds to set out it was not one of the questions submitted to the question of law as follows:—' "The question the court for its opinion. The wording of of law upon which this case is stated for the our Magistrate's Ordinance is different from opinion of the Court in therefore :-Whether, section 6 of 2 and 21 Victoria, o 43. But under the above state of facts, the term owner without deciding that no possible point of law as used in the said Bye Law and defined by the could arise which the Court would notice if not said Ordinance is limited, as contended for by specifically submitted by the
I see the appellants, to the person who immediately reason why, in this instance, the Court should receiver the rent from the actual occupier of go outside the ordinary rule. It is obviously the premises or whether the Land Investment inconvenient that when Counsel oome before and Agency Company, Limited, can be consider-the Court to argue a specific point of law a ed the owners as either being the 'house owners' or else as being in receipt of the rent of the premises."
??
The definition of owner given by the Ordin- ance is as follows :-
“Owner-Any house-owner, or the person for the time being receiving the rent of the premises solely or as joint tenant or tenant in common with others, or receiving the rent of any premises whether on his own behalf or that of any other person, or, where the owner cannot be found or ascertained, the occupier; and for the purposes of this Ordinance every mortgagee in possession shall be deemed su owner;" and it is provided by the Ordinance such is to be the meaning of the word "owner" in any Bye Law made under the Ordinance. Now'
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case,
по
totally different point should be suddenly sub. mitted by one of the parties. If the Appellant when summoned as Secretary of the Company, had raised the objection that the Company and pot the Secretary of the Company ought to have been summoned, as this was a case arising under the definition of “ owner and not under the definition of householder," the matter could have been set right at once. But this was not done and the Magistrate, no doubt, assumed that as the Secretary appeared and his legal adviser took no point of the kind, the Secretary was content to assume the role of representative and alter ego of the Company. I any case the matter involved no moral turpitude and Mr. Shelton Hooper was only fined as representing the Company and because be appeared in such representative capacity.
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The debtor and his employer having given evidence, a receiving order was made it being. arranged that the debtor should pay $40 a
mooth.
THE CLIMAX OF THE PHILIP- PINE INSURRECTION.
THE GOVERNMENT DESTROYED.
AGUINALDO A FUGITIVE.
[FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT.]
Manila, 1st December. The war in the Philippines has come to the point where even the most conservative declare that organized resistance on a large scale is now impossible. The splendidly organized In- surgent Government is scattered to the four winda. More than half the principal leaders of Congress and the strongest men in the civil machine have come into the American lines or have been picked up by the troops in the num- erous towns that have been occupied during the last month. As a rule they have not been taken prisoners, but rather ignored, and usually when the request has been made transportation has been given to Manila, Baptista, the last Pre- sident of Congress, Dr. Leonsong, the chief surgeon of the army, the director of railways, Luna's brother with his family and mother, Major Ortis, Senor Barretto, the Attorney. General, and an odd lot of Congressmen and military officials have, temporarily at least, renounced the Insurgent cause,
The operations of the last month have been so rapid and effective that Aguinaldo's army has been hounded from place to place by Lawton on the east, McArthur on the west, and Wheaton and Young on the north, until the provinces have become thoroughly terrorized.
THE FLIGHT AND ESCAPE.
For twelve long days and nights Aguinaldo and his small party were chased from pillar to post, fighting against heavy odds, against an overwhelmingly superior force both in num. bers and equipment, and against the semi-hostile native population of Pangasinan; to say nothing of the notorious ladrones, the Guardia de Honor, who hung like vultures on his flanks waiting for an opportunity to rob or kill or inferm on the fleeing General, in order to get a part of the treasure which was reported with him. At Asingan his little girl died from exposure and his wife was taken sick. A day later he con signed his three year old son to the care of faithful nurse, and made a last dash for liberty,
4