602

the commencement of the voyage, and if within any colonial or foreign port or place the passengers, or any of them, shall be brought back to the United Kingdom, or if any passenger ship shall put into any port or place in the United Kingdom in a damaged state, the master, charterer, or owner shall, within forty-eight hours thereafter, give to the nearest emigration officer, or in the absence of such officer, to the chief officer of Customs, a written undertaking to the following effect: that is to say, if the ship shall have been wrecked, or rendered unfit as aforesaid to proceed on her voyage, that the owner, charterer, or master thereof shall embark and convey the passengers in some other eligible ship, to sail within six weeks from the date thereof, to the port or place for which their passages respectively had been previously taken; and if the ship shall have put into port in a damaged state, then that she shall be made seaworthy and fit in all respects for her intended voyage, and shall, within six weeks from the date of such undertaking, sail again with her passengers; in either of the above cases, the owner, charterer, or master shall, until the passengers proceed on their voyage, either lodge and maintain them on board in the same manner as if they were at sea, or pay to them subsistence-money after the rate of one shilling and sixpence a day for each statute adult, unless the passengers shall be maintained in any house or establishment under the superintendence of the Emigration Commissioners mentioned in the said “Passengers Act, 1855,” in which case the subsistence money shall be paid to the Emigration Officer at such port or place. If the substituted ship or damaged ship, as the case may be, shall not sail within the time prescribed as aforesaid, or if default shall be made in any of the requirements of this section, such passengers respectively, or any emigration officer on their behalf, shall be entitled to recover, by summary process, as in the said “Passengers Act, 1855,” is mentioned, all monies which shall have been paid by or on account of such passengers or any of them for such passage, from the party to whom or on whose account the same may have been paid, or from the owner, charterer, or master of such ship, or any of them, at the option of such passenger or emigration officer: Provided, that the said emigration officer may, if he shall think it necessary, direct that the passengers shall be removed from such damaged “Passenger Ship,” at the expense of the master thereof; and if after such direction any passenger shall refuse to leave such ship, he shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding forty shillings, or to imprisonment not exceeding one calendar month.

15. If any passenger or cabin passenger of any passenger ship shall, without any neglect or default of his own, find himself within any colonial or foreign port or place other than that for which the ship was originally bound, or at which he or the Emigration Commissioners, or any public officer or other person on his behalf, may have contracted that he should land, it shall be lawful for the Governor of such Colony, or for any person authorised by him for the purpose, or for Her Majesty’s Consular Officer at such foreign port or place, as the case may be, to forward such passenger to his intended destination, unless the master of such ship shall, within forty-eight hours of the arrival of such passenger, give to the Governor or Consular officer, as the case may be, a written undertaking to forward or carry on, within six weeks thereafter, such passenger or cabin passenger to his original destination, and unless such master shall accordingly forward or carry him on within that period.

16. All expenses incurred under the last preceding section, or under the fifty-second section of “The Passengers Act, 1855,” or either of them, or by the authority of such Secretary of State, Governor, or Consular Officer, or other person, as therein respectively mentioned, including the cost of maintaining the passengers until forwarded to their destination, and of all necessary bedding, provisions, and stores, shall become a debt to Her Majesty, and Her successors from the owner, charterer, and master of such ship, and shall be recoverable from them, or from any one or more of them, at the suit and for the use of Her Majesty in like manner as in the case of other crown debts; and a certificate in the form in the Schedule (A) hereto annexed, or as near thereto as the circumstances of the case will admit, purporting to be under the hand of any such Secretary of State, Governor, or Consular Officer as the case may be, stating the total amount of such expenses, shall in any suit or other proceeding for the recovery of such debt be received in evidence without proof of the handwriting or of the official character of such Secretary of State, Governor, or Consular Officer, and shall be deemed sufficient evidence of the amount of such expenses, and that the same were duly incurred, nor shall it be necessary to adduce any evidence on behalf of Her Majesty any other evidence in support of the claim, but judgment shall pass for the Crown, with costs of suit, unless the defendant shall specially plead and duly prove that such certificate is false or fraudulent, or shall specially plead and prove any facts showing that such expenses were not duly incurred under the provisions of this Act, and of the said “Passengers Act, 1855,” or either of them: Provided nevertheless, that in no case shall any larger sum be recovered on account of such expenses than a sum equal to twice the total amount of passage money received or due.