A.D. 1878. SECTION 109. DISORDERLY HOUSES. Everyone shall be guilty of an indictable offence, and shall be liable upon conviction thereof to two years imprisonment with hard labour, who keeps any disorderly house, that is to say, any common 5 bawdy house, common gaming house, common betting house, or disorderly place of entertainment as herein-after defined. Any person who appears, acts, or behaves as master or mistress, or as the person having the care, government, or management of any disorderly house, shall be deemed to be the keeper thereof, and shall 10 be liable to be prosecuted and punished as such, although, in fact, he is not the real owner or keeper thereof. SECTION 110. COMMON BAWDY HOUSES. A common bawdy house is a house, room, set of rooms, or place 15 kind whatever, kept for purposes of prostitution. of any SECTION 111. COMMON GAMING HOUSES. A common gaming house is a house, room, or place kept or used for playing therein at any game of chance, or any mixed of chance and skill, in which- game 20 (i.) A bank is kept by one or more of the players, exclusively of the others; or (ii.) In which any game is played the chances of which are not alike favourable to all the players, including among the players 25 the banker or other person by whom the game is managed, or against whom the other players stake, play, or bet. SECTION 112. EVIDENCE THAT A HOUSE IS A COMMON GAMING HOUSE. The following circumstances shall be deemed to be sufficient evi- 30 dence (until the contrary is proved) that a house, room, or place is a common gaming house, and that the persons found therein were unlawfully playing therein; that is to say, (i.) Where any cards, dice, balls, counters, tables, or other instruments of gaming used in playing any unlawful game are found 35 in any house, room, or place suspected to be used as a common gaming house, and entered under a warrant or order issued 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 under an Act passed in the ninth year of Her Majesty's reign, A.D. 1878. therein. (ii.) Where any constable or officer authorised as aforesaid to (iii.) If any such house, room, or place is found fitted or provided SECTION 113. COMMON BETTING HOUSES. A common betting house is a house, office, room, or other place (a.) Kept or used for the purpose of betting between persons resorting thereto and The owner, occupier, or keeper thereof; or Any person using the same; or Any person procured or employed by, or acting for or on behalf Any person having the care or management, or in any manner conducting the business thereof; or (b.) Kept or used for the purpose of any money or valuable thing being received by or on behalf of any such person as aforesaid, as or for the consideration (i.) For any assurance, undertaking, promise, or agreement, express (ii.) As or for the consideration for securing the paying or giving A.D. 1878. 66 66 SECTION 114. DISORDERLY PLACES OF ENTERTAINMENT. A disorderly place of entertainment is, (a.) A house, room, garden, or other place kept for public dancing, music, or other public entertainment of the like kind in the cities 5 of London and Westminster, or within twenty miles thereof, without a license under the provisions of an Act passed in the 25th year of the reign of His late Majesty King George II., intituled " An Act for the better preventing thefts and robberies, and for regulating places of public entertainment and punishing persons 10 keeping disorderly houses;" provided that this definition shall not extend to the theatres royal in Drury Lane and Covent Garden, or the theatre commonly called the Queen's Theatre in the Haymarket, nor to such performances and public entertainments as are lawfully carried on under or by virtue of Letters Patent or license from the 15 Crown, or the license of the Lord Chamberlain of His Majesty's household. 66 (b.) A house, room, or other place opened or used for public i. to which persons are admitted by the payment of money or by 20 ii. at which persons are supplied with tea, coffee, or any other (c.) Any house, room, or place opened or used for any public A.D. 1878. 5 10 15 PART V. OFFENCES AGAINST THE PERSON, THE CON- CHAPTER XVII. OF MATTER OF JUSTIFICATION AND EXCUSE FOR THE SECTION 115. EXCEPTIONS TO DEFINITIONS OF OFFENCES. Every definition herein-after contained of any offence against the life or body of any person is subject to the provisions contained in this and in the following chapter. SECTION 116. EXECUTION OF LAWFUL SENTENCES. No act is an offence which is done in the execution, in the manner prescribed by law by a person who is obliged, or who is duly authorised, to execute it, of a lawful sentence duly passed by a competent court. A court which but for some formal defect in its authority or in 20 its proceedings, or but for a mistake made in good faith as to a matter of fact, would have had jurisdiction to pass a sentence, is a competent court within the meaning of this section; but a court which has by law no jurisdiction at all over the case in which sentence is passed is not such a court, and a mistaken belief on the part 25 of the judge, or of the officer who executes the sentence, that it is such a court neither justifies nor excuses his act. 30 SECTION 117. KEEPING THE PEACE. No one, whether he is a justice of the peace, a peace officer, or a private person, and if a private person, whether he is, and acts as a soldier under military discipline or not, is guilty of an offence by reason of his inflicting death or bodily harm on any person in order to keep the peace, or suppress a riot, or disperse an unlawful assembly, provided that he uses no greater violence and inflicts no A.D). 1878. greater injury on any person than he in good faith and on reasonable grounds believed at the time when he inflicted it to be necessary for that purpose. The fact that any such person acted in obedience to the orders of any magistrate or military officer is not in itself a justification of his 5 act, but is relevant to the question whether he did in good faith and on reasonable grounds believe as aforesaid. SECTION 118. PREVENTION OF THE COMMISSION OF CRIMES AND ARREST OF CRIMINALS. The intentional infliction of death or bodily harm is not an offence 10 when it is done by any person in order to prevent the commission of treason, murder, housebreaking, rape, robbery, arson, piracy, or any other offence attempted to be committed by actual force, and for which the offender might be sentenced to penal servitude on the first conviction, or, in order lawfully to arrest any person who has committed any offence for which the offender might be sentenced on a first conviction to penal servitude, or in order to retake or keep in lawful custody any such person having escaped, or attempting to escape, from such custody, 15 20 or, when it is done by a constable, or other officer of justice, in order to execute a warrant of arrest for any offence, which cannot otherwise be executed. The intentional infliction of death or bodily harm is not an offence when it is inflicted by way of self defence against unlawful violence. The intentional infliction of death or bodily harm is not justified in any of the cases specified in the two sections last preceding, unless the person by whom such death or bodily harm was inflicted used every reasonable means in his power to avoid the necessity for inflicting it at all, and to inflict as little harm as was consistent 35 with attaining his object. No person shall be deemed to have inflicted in self defence any injury inflicted by him on any such person in a fight from which he might, under all the circumstances of the case, have reasonably been expected to withdraw himself before such injury was inflicted; pro- 40 |