Breach of con tract involving injury to persons or property. is mentioned in this section shall cause to be posted up, at the gasworks or waterworks, as the case may be, belonging to such authority or company or contractor, a printed copy of this section in some conspicuous place where the same may be conveniently read by the persons employed, and as often as such copy becomes defaced, obliterated, or destroyed, shall cause it to be renewed with all reasonable despatch. If any municipal authority or company or contractor make default in complying with the provisions of this section in relation to such notice as aforesaid, they or he shall incur on summary conviction a penalty not exceeding five pounds for every day during which such default continues, and every person who unlawfully injures, defaces, or covers up any notice so posted up as aforesaid in pursuance of this act, shall be liable on sunimary conviction to a penalty not exceeding forty shillings. 5. Where any person wilfully and maliciously breaks a contract of service or of hiring, knowing or having reasonable cause to believe that the probable consequences of his so doing, either alone or in combination with others, will be to endanger human life, or cause serious bodily injury, or to expose valuable property whether real or personal to destruction or serious injury, he shall on conviction thereof by a court of summary jurisdiction, or on indictment as hereinafter mentioned, be liable either to pay a penalty not exceeding twenty pounds, or to be imprisoned for a term not exceeding three months, with or without hard labour. Definitions of Definitions. 14. The expression "municipal authority" in this act means any of the following authorities, that is to say, the metropolitan board of works, the common council of the city of London, the commissioners of sewers of the city of London, the town council of any borough for the time being subject to the act of the session of the fifth and sixth years of the reign of king William the Fourth, chapter seventy-six, intituled "An Act to provide for the regulation of municipal corporations in England and Wales," and any act amending the same, any commissioners, trustees, or other persons invested by any local act of parliament with powers of improving, cleansing, lighting, or paving any town, and any local board. Any municipal authority or company or contractor who has obtained authority by or in pursuance of any general or local act of parliament to supply the streets of any city, borough, town, or place, or of any part thereof, with gas, or which is required by or in pursuance of any general or local act of parliament to supply water on demand to the inhabitants of any city, borough, town, or place, or any part thereof, shall for the purposes of this act be deemed to be a municipal authority or company or contractor upon whom is imposed by act of parliament the duty of supplying such city, borough, town, or place, or part thereof, with gas or water. 15. The word " maliciously" used in reference to any "Maliciously" in this act conoffence under this act shall be construed in the same manner strued as in as it is required by the fifty-eighth section of the act relating Malicious Injuries to to malicious injuries to property, that is to say, the act of the Property Act. session of the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth years of the reign of her present Majesty, chapter ninety-seven, to be construed in reference to any offence committed under such last-mentioned act. 18. This act shall extend to Scotland, with the modifications Application to Scotland. following; that is to say, (1.) The expression "municipal authority" means the town Definitions. council of any royal or parliamentary burgh, or the commissioners of police of any burgh, town, or populous place under the provisions of the General Police and Improvement (Scotland) Act, 1862, or any local authority under the provisions of the Public Health (Scotland) Act, 1867: (2.) The expression "The Summary Jurisdiction Act" means the Summary Procedure Act, 1864, and any acts amending the same: (3.) The expression "the court of summary jurisdiction" means the sheriff of the county or any one of his substitutes. 19. In Scotland the following provisions shall have effect Recovery of in regard to the prosecution of offences, recovery of penalties, penalties, &c. and making of orders under this act : (1.) Every offence under this act shall be prosecuted, every in Scotland. penalty recovered, and every order made at the instance of the lord advocate, or of the procurator fiscal of the sheriff court: (2.) The proceedings may be on indictment in the Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh or on circuit or in a sheriff court, or may be taken summarily in the sheriff court under the provisions of the Summary Procedure Act, 1864: (3.) Every person found liable on conviction to pay any penalty under this act shall be liable, in default of payment within a time to be fixed in the conviction, to be imprisoned for a term, to be also fixed therein, not exceeding two months, or until such penalty shall be sooner paid, and the conviction and warrant may be in the form of No. 3 of Schedule K. of the Summary Procedure Act, 1864: (4.) In Scotland all penalties imposed in pursuance of this act shall be paid to the clerk of the court imposing them, and shall by him be accounted for and paid to the Queen's and lord treasurer's remembrancer, and be carried to the consolidated fund. * THE COMPANIES CLAUSES CONSOLIDATION ACT, 1845. 8 VICT. CAP. 16. An Act for consolidating in one Act certain Provisions usually inserted in Acts with respect to the Constitution of Companies incorporated for carrying on undertakings of a [8th May, 1845.] public nature. WHEREAS it is expedient to comprise in one general act sundry provisions relating to the constitution and management of joint stock companies, usually introduced into acts of parliament authorizing the execution of undertakings of a public nature by such companies, and that as well for the purpose of avoiding the necessity of repeating such provisions in each of the several acts relating to such undertakings as for ensuring greater uniformity in the provisions themselves: may it therefore please your majesty that it may be enacted; and be it enacted by the Queen's most excellent majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, in this present parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, that this act shall apply to every joint stock company which shall by any act which shall hereafter be passed be incorporated for the purpose of carrying on any undertaking, and this act shall be incorporated to be passed. with such act; and all the clauses and provisions of this act, save so far as they shall be expressly varied or excepted by any such act, shall apply to the company which shall be incorporated by such act, and to the undertaking for carrying on which such company shall be incorporated, so far as the same shall be applicable thereto respectively; and such clauses and provisions, as well as the clauses and provisions. of every other act which shall be incorporated with such act, W. M M to all companies incorporated by Act to apply acts hereafter Interpretations in this act. "the special act," shall, save as aforesaid, form part of such act, and be construed together therewith as forming one act. The preamble of an act does not control a statute, but it is sometimes used to explain it, especially when there is any doubt as to the enacting part, when it may be used to collect the intention of the legislature. So also, the punctuation, or the division into sections, may be resorted to in certain cases, but these are not parts of the act itself, and have occasionally been shown to be erroneous. The marginal notes now appear in the rolls of parliament; they form part of the acts, and may be used to explain the sections to which they refer. Venour v. Sellon, L. R., 2 Ch. Div. 522; 45 L. J., Ch. 409; 24 W. R. 752. It is important, in construing the provisions of acts of parliament, to make a distinction between those which are merely directory and those which are imperative. The distinction pointed out is this :--A statute is to be considered directory when its provisions contain mere matter of direction; but when these matters of direction are followed by such words "or in default thereof every such lease, &c. to be null and void to all intents and purposes," it is to be construed as imperative. Pearse v. Morrice, 4 Nev. & M. 48; 2 Ad. & E. 84. Where an act for paving, lighting, &c. the township of Birkenhead, in the county of Chester, said that certain contracts for lighting the town should be signed by the commissioners or any three of them, or by their clerk, it was held that the provision was directory only; but where it was said that no such contract should be made for a longer term than three years from the making thereof, this was held to be binding. Negative words have the effect of making a statute imperative. Cole v. Green, 7 Scott, N. R. 682; 13 L. J., C. P. 30; Rex v. Leicester, JJ., 7 B. & C. 6; 9 D. & R. 772. UNDERTAKING, when assigned by certain debentures, was taken to mean the earnings alone, and not the capital, lands, stock, &c., by a seizure of which the objects for which the company was incorporated might be wholly defeated. Gardner v. London, Chatham, and Dover Railway Co., 15 L. T. (N. S.), Ch. 552. II. And with respect to the construction of this act, and of other acts to be incorporated therewith, be it enacted as follows: The expression "the special act" used in this act shall be construed to mean any act which shall be hereafter passed incorporating a joint stock company for the purpose of carrying on any undertaking, and with which this act shall be "prescribed:" so incorporated as aforesaid; and the word "prescribed " used in this act, in reference to any matter herein stated, shall be construed to refer to such matter as the same shall be prescribed or provided for in the special act; and the sentence in which such word shall occur shall be construed as if instead of the word "prescribed" the expression "prescribed for that purpose in the special act" had been used; and the expression "the undertaking" shall mean the undertaking or works, of whatever nature, which shall by the special act be authorized to be executed. "the undertaking:" A general act of parliament does not repeal a previous particular act, unless there are express words or unless the two acts are necessarily |