!
3.
As a matter of drafting
I should have preferred to have seen the old Ordinance re-enacted with the amendments now, passed but inasmuch
as
the old the
Ordinance was based on
opium Convention entered into with China in 1886, it was
thought
desirable at rate for the
any present to leave it standing. On the other hand an amending Ordinance brings into relief the
alterations made.
L
are as
The material alterations
follows: (1) Section 2 2 of the old Ordinance defined "Chest of Opium to mean the package with the opium therein, such as is "usually imported by merchants " in the Colony"," and sections 3 and 6 of the same Ordinance prohibited the import and "possession of raw opium in "quantities
78
quantities less than one okest except in certain cases which it is immaterial to mention. In 1889 the Full Court decided
that a man in possession of the contents of several chest's packed in bags could not be convicted of being in possession of opium "in quantities less "than a chest holding that that expression meant "less than the quantity a chest ~
"could contain!
The object of the section was to prevent smuggling by prokibiting the possession of opium outside the chest in which it was imported;
the
decision at once
gate.
вренед
the
Hence it became necessary to redefine quantities in less than one chest and this has been effected in ~
Section