EN CLOSURE 1.
207
19620
I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your Most Obedient
Humble Servant,
Mrach Major General, Administering the Go-
verdiment
COPY
Ва
Minute by the Attorney General (Mr.Goodman) on
certain Sections of the Vagrancy Ordinance, 1897.
Referring to the Despatch No.136 of the Secre-
tary of State, dated 26th.day of May, 1898, and its enclosures,
To 37911
it appears that the sections of the Vagrancy Ordinance, No.25
of 1897, to which exception has been taken, are Sections 15,21,
22 and 23.
As regards Section 15, I am informed that the
"distressed Seamen", as defined by Sections 191 and 193 of the
>
Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, never are declared to be vagrants,
since the Act contains provisions for their maintenance and
relief and the provisions are always complied with in HongKong.
Section 15,has, therefore, no application, in prac -
tice, to such distressed seamen.
Sections 15 and 21 are really intended to meet
the cases of seamen discharged from Foreign Ships over which
discharge we have, at present, no control, or from British Ships
without official sanction, and of seamen given charitable pas-
sages to Hong-Kong from other ports. It must be borne in mind
that Foreign Consuls not seldom omit to require proper con-
ditions for the subsistence of the seamen whose discharge they
sanction.
(See