PARLIAMENTARY NOTES.

Hastings Standard, Issue 88, 7 August 1896, Page 3

PARLIAMENTARY NOTES.

IN HOUSE AND COUNCIL. [By Telegraph.] ' /•',-•>//) ■:!(>• Si:rial CorreajHindcut. j Wellington, this day. From a return to hand I learn that the wrecks and casualties on the coasts of the colony last year numbered 37, representing 21,060 tons, as against 41, affecting 9800 tons in the previous year. The number of lives lost was eight, compared with 151 for for 1894. The Juvenile Depravity Bill introduced by the Premier gives very great powers to members of the police force. Any girl apparently not over sixteen years found loitering on the streets or in out-of-the-way places after 10 p.m. may be subjected to rigorous examination if the constable has reason to believe she is there for immoral purposes, and should such girl be found again loitering she is to be taken to the police station, and if her answers are not then satisfactory she is to be detained in custody and brought before the magistrate. Police constables are given power at any time to enter without warrant immoral houses and Chinese dens if they have reason to suspect that any girl is being harbored there. Gambling dens may also be entered and boys under seventeen found there are to be taken into custody. The closing of hotels by a prohibition vote would of course have the effect of decreasing the accommodation for travellers and lodgers generally. Mr T. Mackenzie, who represents the only prohibition district in the colony, has introduced the Registered Hotels Bill, which has for its object the provision of sufficient lodging houses wherever a prohibition vote does away with the existing licenses. These registered hotels are to be licensed at a small fee and be under public regulation, and registered and described according to the class of accommodation they provide. Mr G. W. Russell's Lunatic Asylum Boards Bill provides that in connection with each public lunatic asylum there shall be a board of enquiry, consisting of the S.M., one of the visiting Justices to be appointed by the Governor in Council, and some person to Be appointed by the employees of the institution. The board is to be practically a board of appeal for the employees at , Mylwaa.