SUGGESTED LEGAL AMENDMENTS.

Evening Star, Issue 7344, 17 October 1887, Page 4

SUGGESTED LEGAL AMENDMENTS.

The following ampndments of existing statutes have been strongly recommended to the Government by the Commissioner of Police, and, if time should serve, they will probably be embodied in the needful amending Bills: Licensing Act, 1881, section 149, and the Gaming and Lotteries Act, 1881, section 5. —A clear and precise definition is required as to what shall constitute a lawful game. In the proacnt state of uncertainty on this head it is found to ba impossible to obtain a conviction against publioajjs and others for permitting gambling with cards or dice. Many Magistrates decline to oonviut in the absence of such definition. The insertion of the following clause, taken from the old Provincial Licensing Ordinance, would meet the case so far as publicans are concerned:—"No person licensed under the Act as a publican, or holding an accommodation house license, bottle, or conditional license to sell liquors, shall suffer or permit gambling or playing at any game of chance in or upon his house or premisffs." This amendm9n,t to the existing law would tend to check an evil which is becoming common throughout the Colony, simply because it can be carried on with comparative impunity. Licensing Act, 1881, section 169.—This section deals with the sale of liquor to prohibited persons. This clause is at present a dead letter, for the reason that the persons supplying the liquor rarely be discovered and punished. This difficulty might possibly be met were section 171 altered so ao tp make it compulsory ou prohibited persons, when arrested for drunkenness, to disclose the name of the person who supplied thsm with liquor, and power given to punish contumacy under this section. Under the same section Magistrates have declined to convict a licensee when the liquor has been sold by $ servant and proof has been given that the master instructed the servant not to serve the prohibited or drunken persons. This clause should be amended so as to leave no doubt that the maxim " respondat superior" applied. If this is not done, the intention of the Act as to endorsement on licenses will be .clearly defeated. The following clause is suggested:—" Any breach of section 169 by the servant of any licensee, to be the act of the licensee, and punishable as siUfh, notwithstanding that proof may be given that such servant acted in direct contravention of the orders of his or her master or mistress." Licensing Act. 1881, section 155.—1n a prosecution against the licensee of the Albion Hotel, Wellington, for having sold liquor during prohibited hours, the Resident Magistrate dismissed the case on the grounds that the license having been extended to 11 p.m. under the provisions of section 9 of the Licensing Act Amendments, 1882, it was necessary to show that the unlicensed sale occurred after midnight, since, though provision is made in the Act of 1882 for an extension to 11 p.m., no penalty is provided for selling between that hour and midnight, noe is it anywhere laid down that the house shall be closed during that hour. Section 134 of the Act of 1881 deabQonly with ten o'clock and midnight licenses. It is suggested that the section be amended by the addition of the following words:—" Where, under the Licensing Act Amendment Act, 1882, a license has been extended for the sale of liquors until 11 p.m., the licensed premises shall be closed on the same night from eleven o'clock until six o'clock the following morning." Prosecutions instituted under this have been frequently dismissed oil the ground that a sale had not been proved, although it had been conclusively proved that liquor had been consumed on the premises at unauthorised times. The offence of supplying liquor during prohibited hours should be added to the penal clause 149, and that all persons not lodgers or travellera found drinking or obtaining drinks at such times should be made amenable to the law.

Police Offences Act, 1884, section 21. The following amendment is suggested : After the word " drunkenness " add "or by reason of the excessive use of alcoholic liquor his or her mental faculties or bodily health is impaired." The necessity for this addition is that Magistrates will not apply the provisions of the Act to persons arrested unless they are helplessly drunk. Persons on the verge of delirium tremens are held not to be drunk, and are consequently charged as lunatics, and remanded < to the gaols for treatment and examination as such by medical men. This means generally a few days nursing at the expense of the country, when they are discharged without being called on to pay the expenses incurred on their behalf, and are at .liberty to repeat the performance as often as it may please them [Police Offences Act, 1884, seotion 3, sub-section

29]. This sub-section provides that offences mentioned therein are punishable only when committed in a public place within the meaning of this Act, but not in a private yard or on the other side of a fence adjacent to a public place. The provisions of this subsection to meet such offences as fighting, insulting behavior, etc., are inoperative by reason of the omission of the word "or" after public place. It will have been observed that this word appears in section 24, sub-section 2, of the same Act, having reference to indecency, though more often required to meet the offences mentioned in the section now under consideration. Provision should be also made under the Act for dealing with cases where a bystander being called upon to assist a constable in arresting a prisoner refuses or neglects to do so. A case of this nature occurred a short time ago. The man called upon refused to assist, and no summary action could be taken against him in the present state of the law. Gaming and Lotteries Act Amendment Act, 1885, section 7.—Great difficulty has been experienced in obtaining convictions under this clause, from the fact that it is not shown therein that the sweepstakes mentioned apply to or are contingent on the result of a horse race. This device has been noticed by spielers, who get up sweepstakes on spinning-wheels, without reference to horse races ; and Justices have declined i to convict, contending that it was a sweepstake within the meaning of the Act.