face of those negotiations
1859
it was hardly to be expected that the Attorney General - the only legal officer of the colony - would be put in motion to obtain convictions
was not put in the Supreme Court. In fact he certainly was not during the three eventful years 1856-1859 of my Attorney-Generalship. The judgment alluded to was given by the Supreme Court in a civil suit between private litigants.
Who
-1859
The Ordinance could not be properly enforced by the authorities whom it purported to empower to do so:
For penal provisions or all that it did was to exact testimony against any person, who should
"For gain or lucre keep any room or place, boat, vessel, or any place on land or water, for public playing or gambling, or permit any person within such house etc. to play it." (which excluded the partner engaged almost at (0.3.))
And the person appearing as master or having the care or management of such house etc., should be liable to the penalty thereby, and should dis... the absent owner, occupier, and "Keeper" thereby; (which again excluded the absent owner occupier, and even the absent "Keeper" - nay more, excluded the owner, occupier, and "Keeper" unless proved to be actually managing or appearing to manage)
It is true that the only remaining section was intended to fix the mesh partners themselves within
33
A
but the intention certainly failed for lack of precision of language. That section, if it meant anything at all, enacted (1.2.)
"That any person who should use or haunt, or be found in any such house etc. should be liable..." remarkable for not designating a "gambling house", nor saying "when gambling was going on" or at what "time" was...
so that this prohibition, if literally carried into effect, would have taken in not merely the gambler, innocent occupiers, visitors, servants - all in short, who might be found in any house etc. in the colony, from Government House to the meanest...
The repeated miscarriages of informations under that Ordinance were brought to the notice of the Police...