42
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5.
Ordinance No.4 of 1897, section 14, make s the
landlord also liable if the improper use continues after
a discontinuance order under section 124 or section 13.
The maximum penalty is $500. The onus is on the landlord
to prove, if he can, that neither he nor his rent collector
knew or had reasonable means of knowing of the use.
6. Ordinance No.4 of 1897, section 15, gives a
magistrate power to determine any existing tenancy, on the
complaint of the landlord, if the improper use is continued
after a discontinuance order.
Ordinance No.4 of 1897, section 16, gives
a wide power of search of any place suspected of being a broth-
el etc. This power does not require a magistrate's warrant.
Other wide powers of search, inquiry and detention, are
given by section 39 of the ordinance (as enacted by Ordinance
No.21 of 1929, section 6) and by section 40.
8. The two sections just referred to, sections
39 and 40, emphasise what I believe to be the great object
of the present system of tolerated houses, i.e., the
prevention of offences connected with the trafficking in
girls for the purpose of prostitution.
The prevention of
disease was, of course, the main object of the system of
registration of brothels and their inmates, which was intro-
duced by the Contagious Diseases Ordinance, 1867, Ordinance
No.10 of 1867. That system continued with variations until
it was abolished by Ordinance No.6 of 1894. The medical
object may at one time have been partly relied on for the
later toleration system also, but opinion has changed and
I imagine that the authorities no longer regard that object
as justification for a system of tolerated houses.
They
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