CO882-(3-4) — Page 259

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

LICO. 882

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO!

Penalty for desertion.

Form of charge against a deserter.

Arrest of

deserters by employer or his agents without warrant.

Penalty for wrongful apprehen.

#100.

A deserters book to be kept at the

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desertion, or in respect of any imprisonment for the desertion of any immigrant where the manager has not preferred such charge against the immigrant 'within such time.

121. Every immigrant under indenture who shall desert from his plantation or establishment shall on conviction be liable to make good the period of his desertion, and in addition to be imprisoned for any period not exceeding three months.

122. Every charge against an immigrant under indenture for desertion and every warrant for the apprehension of an immigrant under indenture shall be in the form in the Schedules numbered 25 and 26 respectively.

123. If any immigrant under indenture desert from his employer's service it shall be lawful for such employer, or any servant of such employer, or any officer or constable of police acting with his authority and on his behalf, without a warrant to apprehend such deserter in any place, except a dwelling-house, where he may be found; provided that such arrest shall only be lawful during the interval between the desertion and the obtaining the warrant as provided in articles 118 and 120, and shall in no case be lawful after seven days from the date of the desertion, and provided that if the party making the arrest in so doing use any unnecessary violence, or do not forthwith after such arrest deliver over the deserter to lawful custody, together with the charge in the form herein-before prescribed, or do not appear and support the charge before the stipendiary magistrate having jurisdiction to entertain the same, such party shall be liable to a fine not exceeding 10. or to imprisonment not exceeding one calendar month.

124. If any labourer be wrongfully apprehended, the person apprehending him, or on whose charge or by whose order he shall have been so apprehended, and all persons who shall have aided or abetted the apprehender in effecting the apprehension, shall be liable to a fine not exceeding 10l., a part of which may be paid to the labourer so apprehended, as damages; or to an imprisonment not exceeding one month. But any officer or constable of police shall be deemed to have been justified in arresting or detaining a labourer upon a charge of desertion, if he shall have acted bona fide in conformity with the provisions of either of the preceding articles.

125. A deserters book shall be opened in the Immigration Office, and all desertions declared to the Protector shall be inserted therein. Such declaration Immigration shall be made in the form of the Schedule No. 26

hereto annexed.

Office.

Names of

Depôt to be published.

126. If any immigrant admitted into the Immi- deserters at gration Depôt be declared as a deserter he shall be Immigration detained in the depôt, and his detention, as soon as may be, shall be notified to his employer if his residence be known to the Protector. The names and numbers of all deserters so detained and the names of their employers, if they be known to the Protector, shall besides be published in the Govern- ment Gazette; and if within one week from the date of any such publication any immigrant mentioned in

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such notice be not claimed by his employer, the former shall be free to enter into another contract of service on presentation of a certificate in the form of the Schedule No. 21 to any stipendiary magistrate. It shall, however, be in the power of the Protector to transfer such immigrant to the Central Police Office of Port Louis, to be handed over to his employer.

It shall be lawful for the Protector of Immigrants to transfer such servant to the Central Police Station or to the stipendiary magistrate of the district in which such servant was employed, and it shall be lawful for the officer in charge of the police station or the stipendiary magistrate to hand over the servant to the employer, or to give notice to the employer, so that such employer may send for such

servant,

Provided that in all cases in which the employer of such deserter shall, after receiving such due notice of the deserter being at the Immigration Depôt, neglect to take measures for receiving back the deserter, and the Protector shall through the police return the deserter to his employer, the employer shall be charged with all the costs incidental to the reconveyance to him of such deserter.

absence and

127. Any servant who shall absent himself from Exemptions his plantation in order, on reasonable grounds, to lay from penal- an information or make a complaint against the ties for employer or manager before the stipendiary magis- in respect trate, or to make any reasonable complaint of his of work. treatment, and to ask counsel of the Protector of Immigrants, shall be entitled to receive from such magistrate or Protector of Immigrants a certificate in form of Schedule No. 27 that such absence was for reasonable cause, and no immigrant possessing such a certificate, and who shall on his return produce the same to his employer, shall be liable to conviction for unlawful absence from such plantation upon the day on which such certificate was granted, or within such time, before and after, as shall be necessary to allow of his free going and returning, nor shall any immigrant be convicted under this Ordinance, for non-perform- ance of work assigned him in respect of any work for which he shall have been at the time physically unfitted or which shall be of such a description or extent, or which he shall have been assigned in such a manner, or for such a rate of wages as to con- travene any provision of this Ordinance, or which shall have been unduly thrown out, or for which any wages shall have been unlawfully withheld.

CHAPTER IX.

VAGRANCY.

128. Every person shall be deemed a vagrant who Vagrancy

shall be convicted before any stipendiary defined. magistrate of being an idle and disorderly per- (1.) Idla and son (as defined by Ordinance No. 42, of 1844,

alsorderly person. article 1), and shall be liable to be imprisoned and kept to hard labour for any time not exceeding one calendar month.

(2.) Every person convicted of being idle and (2) Rogues

disorderly twice within 12 calendar months and vaga- before any stipendiary magistrate, or of being

a rogue and vagabond (as defined by any

D 2

bonds.