|
|
one half for the use of the Commissioners or Trustees aforesaid,
to be collected, Paid, and applied as aforesaid, and the other Half
to the Informer.
And whereas daily Experience shews the great Prejudice to the
Owners and Masters of Merchant Ships and Vessels trading into
this Province by Ordinary Keepers entertaining Sailors and others
to such Ships, and Vessels belonging, and trusting and incouraging
them to continue tipling in their Houses, to the Prejudice of Trade
preventing and impeding the Dispatch of such Ships and Vessels,
and very often when such Sailors have spent all their Wages in such
Ordinaries, it occasions and induces them to run away, and desert
the Ships or Vessels whereto they belong, For Prevention whereof.
Be it enacted by the Authority aforesaid, that no Ordinary Keeper
whatsoever within this Province shall presume to harbour or enter-
tain any Sailor or Sailors or other Person employed in loading of
Ships or Vessels (the master and mate only excepted) to the neglect
of their Service to their respective Commanders, and Prejudice to
the Dispatch of any Ship or Vessel thereby under the Pain and
Penalty of being suspended from keeping such Ordinary: And that
no Ordinary Keeper whatsoever, shall credit any such Sailor for
more than five shillings during any one Voyage, under the Penalty
of losing his Debt, and of being fined the sum of twenty Shillings
Current Money, whereof one half to be collected, paid, and applied
as aforesaid, and the other Half to the Informer or him or them that
will sue for the same, to be recovered as aforesaid, before a single
magistrate.
And be it further Enacted by the Authority aforesaid, that if any
Ordinary Keeper within this Province, shall harbour, entertain, or
sell any Liquor to any Servant belonging to any Person within this
Province, without License from their respective Master or Mistress,
such Ordinary Keeper shall, for every such Offence, forfeit and pay
ten shillings to the Master or Mistress of such Servant, to be re-
covered with Cost, upon Complaint of the said Master or Mistress,
before a Justice of the County where the said Ordinary Keeper lives.
And whereas it is a general Complaint throughout this Province,
that Ordinary Keepers have made it their constant Practice, to enter-
tain Tradesmen and other Persons having Families, and no other
means of supporting them but their own Labour and Industry, and
single disorderly Persons, tipling and gaming, in their Houses, and
wasting their Time and Substance, to the Ruin of their Families,
and themselves, and the Encouragement of Idleness, Drunkeness,
and all other Irregularities and Disorders: For Prevention of which
Evil for the future, Be it Enacted by the Authority aforesaid, that
no Person who shall be licensed to keep Ordinary from and after the
End of this Session of Assembly, shall suffer any Tradesman ot
other Person having a Family, and no visible Estate whereby to sup-
port themselves or their Families, but their own Labour and Indus-
|
L. H. J.
Liber No. 46
|
|
