977
1894
Burma.
MUNICIPAL DEPARTMENT.-No. 686-1T.-15.
Dated Rangoon, the 17th March 1894.
Cory of the following, with copy of the letter under reply and of its enclo- sures, forwarded to the Commissioner of Pegu, with the request that, after con- sulting the Deputy Commissioner and Superintendent of Police, Rangoon, he will report whether in his opinion any legislation against solicitation by prosti. tutes is required.
FROM
ΤΟ
By order,
F. C. GATES,
Secretary.
MUNICIPAL DEPARTMENT.-No. 685-17.-15.
(General.)
F. C. GATES, ESQUIRE, I.C.S.,
SECRETARY TO THE CHIEF COMMISSIONER,
THE PRESIDENT, RANGOON MUNICIPALITY.
Dated Rangoon, the 17th March 1894.
SIB,
In reply to Major Temple's letter No. 1759-745, dated the 9th February 1894, I am directed to say that the Chief Commissioner approves the proposal that a provision similar to section 204 of the Punjab Municipal Act, XX of 1891, should be applied to Rangoon, so as to facilitate the removal of brothels from the respectable streets of the town. Such a provision is already in force in Cal- cutta and its suburbs, Bombay and Madras. In the Rangoon Municipal Bill, which has been drafted by the Chief Commissioner's orders, such a provision will be inserted.
2. The question of preventing solicitation stands upon a different footing. The Police Acts of the three Presidency towns do not mention solicitation in express terms, though "indecent behaviour" is a cognizable offence in all of them. The Indian Contagious Diseases Act, XIV of 1868, never applied to Rangoon, where prostitutes were formerly regulated under the Rangoon Canton- ment Rules, extended for that purpose to all places within four miles from the Cantonment boundary. Rules 27 and 28 of the Rangoon Cantonment Rules were as follows:-
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*
*
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27. No registered prostitute or other woman shall publicly solicit any person within the limits of the Cantonment.
28. It shall be lawful for any police officer specially authorized for the purpose by the District Superintendent, to take into custody without a warrant any woman who, within his view, commits a breach of the last preceding rule.
The proposal of the Municipal Committee goes beyond the above rules. It would make solicitation a cognizable offence for which any policeman might arrest without warrant. In the Chief Commissioner's opinion this provision would probably lead to bribe-taking by the police without advantage to the public, and he does not think that the police should arrest for solicitation ex-
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