Odger's English Common Law

PROCURATION. 223
punishable by imprisonment for two years for any person
who has the custody, charge or care of a girl under sixteen
to cause or encourage the seduction, or prostitution, or unlaw-
ful carnal knowledge, of such girl. Knowingly to allow the
girl to consort with, or be in the employment of, any prostitute
or person of known immoral character is a sufficient " causing
or encouraging " to render a person liable to conviction, if the
girl has in fact been seduced, or become a prostitute, or been
unlawfully carnally known. Further any person, who has the
custody of a girl under sixteen and who knows that she is
exposed to the risk of seduction or prostitution, or of being
unlawfully carnally known, may be bound over to exercise
due care and supervision over her. 1
To steal children under fourteen is a felony punishable
with seven years' penal servitude ; but no one can be
convicted of this crime who took the child under a claim
of right. 2
Brothels.
Keeping a brothel is an indictable misdemeanour at
common law punishable with fine and imprisonment. Any
person, whether resident in or a ratepayer of a parish or not,
may prosecute, even though he has suffered no personal
annoyance or injury therefrom.
The Disorderly Houses Act, 1751, 3 facilitated prosecutions for this
offence. By section 5 of that Act any two inhabitants of a parish, paying
scot and lot therein, may give notice in writing to a constable or other peace
officer of the parish of any person who keeps a brothel. 4 The officer, on
receiving such notice, must go with the two inhabitants before a justice of
the peace, and on their sweating before him that they believe the contents
of such notice to be true, and entering into a recognizance to give evidence
against the accused, the officer must enter into a recognizance to prosecute.
He may recover the cost of such prosecution from the poor-rate, and if the
accused be convicted, the inhabitants who gave notice are entitled to receive
£10 each from the same fund.
1 8 Bdw. VII. o. 67, ss. 17, 18, as amended by 10 Edw. VII. & 1 Geo. V. c. 25, s. 1 ;
and see R. v. Moon, [1910] 1 K. B. 818 ; R. v. Chaincy, [1914] 1 K. B. 137.
* 24 & 25 Vict. c. 100, s. 66 ; and see B. v. Duguid (1906), 94 L. T. 887.
s 25 Geo. II. c. 36, made perpetual by 28 Geo. II. c. 19, s. 1.
* Inhabitants paying scot and lot are now equivalent to inhabitant ratepayers,
and the constable to a member of the police force of the district, or the parish
constable, if any, appointed under 35 & 38 Vict. c. 92, s. 7.