Directory_and_Chronicle_1869 — Page 494

240

CHINESE PASSENGERS' ACT.

passengers or crew appear, by reason of any bodily or mental disease, unfit to proceed or likely to endanger the health or safety of others about to proceed in such vessel; and a medical inspection of the passengers for the purpose of giving such certificate shall take place either on board the vessel, or at the discretion of the said emigration officer, at such convenient place on shore before embarkation, as he may appoint; and the master, owner, or charterer of the ship, shall pay to such medical practitioner a sum at the rate of twenty-five current dollars for every hundred persons so examined: Pro- vided, that in case the emigration officer on any particular occasion shall be unable to obtain such certificate as aforesaid, or the attendance of a medical practitioner within a reasonable time, or without payment of an inspection fee at a higher rate than that hereby ordained, then it shall be lawiul for said emigration officer to dispense with such medical inspection as aforesaid, and to satisfy himself by his own personal ex- amination, for which he shall receive the fee hereinLefore ordained to be paid, of the fit sanitary state of the crew and passengers; provided also that all fees received under this section by the emigration officer, or Colonial Surgeon of Hongkong shall be, within three days after the receipt thereof, paid over by the officer receiving it into the Treasury to the use of the crown,

IV.-No emigration officer shall give the certificate required by the Chinese Passengers' Act, 1855, in respect of any Chinese passengers ship, unless he be satisfied as aforesaid with the hospital accommodation in such ship provided, and with the sanitary state of the crew and passengers thereto belonging.

V.-This Ordinance shall not come into operation until Her Majesty's confirmation thereof shall have been proclaimed in this colony by His Excellency the Governor.

VI.-In the interpretation of this Ordinance the term Chinese passenger ship shall have the same meaning as is attached thereto under the act of Imperial Parlia- ment passed in the eighteenth and nineteenth years of the reign of her present Ma- jesty, known as the Chinese Passenger Act, 1855.

VII-This Ordinance may be cited for any purpose whatever under the name of Chinese Passengers' Health Ordinance.

SUMMARY OF CHINESE PASSENGER ACT,

EMIGRATION OFFICE, HongKong, 26th December, 1860. Whereas much ignorance prevails in this port as to the laws and regulations affect- ing Chinese passenger ships, leading to perpetual reference, by ship masters and mer- chants, to the emigration officer, for information on matters of ordinary detail and standing rule: and whereas the laws and regulations alluded to are contained in various imperial acts, local ordinances, and preclamations, and decisions of the emigration commissioners, on matters arising out of the working of the system since it came into force;-(some of which documents are not easily procurable by the parties interested) it is therefore considered expedient by the emigration officer to publish in a condensed form the leading rules in force in this port relating to all private Chinese passenger ships and passengers, and as far as the provisions of the Imperial Act are concerned, to ships chartered by a British government emigration agent.

Any vessel clearing with more than 20 Asiatic passengers, on any voyage of more than 7 days' duration, is a "Chinese passenger ship" under the Act.

I.-The ship laid on for passengers, the master will notify the emigration officer, by letter, of the fact, specifying the estimated number of passengers she can carry by surveyor's certificate, her destination, and the name of the licensed passage broker employed.

Note. After which, the emigration officer will take an early opportunity to inspect the ship.

II. When the full quantity of passengers' provisions is on board, the master shall notify the emigration officer of the fact, who will as soon as possible thereafter, go off and inspect them.

Note. The provisions must be all placed in the between decks or on the upper deck, and not be stowed away in the hold, until after inspection.

|

ļ

}