OVERTIME in factories and workshops is now regulated by the Act of 1901. In places where preserves are made from fruit, or fish is preserved or cured, or condensed milk is made, there are certain regulations as to the overtime employment of women. The period of employment there for a woman, on any day except Saturday or day substituted for Saturday, may be between 6 A.M. and 8 P.M. or between 7 A.M. and 9 P.M. if she is employed in accordance with the following conditions :—(a) There must be allowed her for meals not less than two hours, of which half-an-hour must be after B P.m.; and (b) she must not be so employed in the whole for more than three days in one week ; and (c) the overtime employment must not take place on more than fifty days in the whole in any twelve months; in reckoning that period every day on which a woman has been employed overtime is to be taken into account. And this overtime regulation may, by special order, be extended to other factories or workshops in which women are employed on perishable goods. Other detailed regulations are contained in the Act as to the overtime employment of women because of the weather and periodical press of work. And for the like employment of women and young persons in factories driven by water when work has been stopped by drought or flood; and in l'urkey-red dyeing and open-air bleaching. And there are also special statutory regulations as to the overtime employment of children, young persons and women, in cases where their work is unfinished at the end of the regular period of employment, in certain factories and workshops. These latter are bleaching and dyeinir orks ; print morks; iron mills in which male young persons are not emproyecl during any part of the night; foundries in which male young persons are not employed during any part of the night; and paper mills in which male young persons are not employed during any part of the night. Sec FACTORIES; NIGI1T WORK.
oyster fishery may be acquired by prescription, grant from the Crown, or by an order under the Sca Fisheries Act, 1868, vesting it in some person for a period not exceeditn, sixty years. No one can lawfully sell, expose for sale, consign for sale, or lcuy for sale any deep-sea oysters, between the 15th June and 4th August ; nor any other description of oysters between the 14th May and 4th August. Por acting in contravention hereof a fine of .122 is incurred in respect of the first offence, and 1'10 for a subsequent offence, and oysters so exposed for sale, or bought for sale, are forfeited. No offence is committed, however, in taking within these periods any oysters from foreign waters and relaying them in English waters for storage purposes (Robertson v. Johnson), nor is there in respect
of oysters preserved in tins or otherwise cured, or intended for the purpose of oyster cultivation in accordance with the regulations of the Board of Trade. An application to the Board of Trade to restrict or prohibit dredging for oysters may be made by a person representing the local fisher men or by any of the following authorities, if they appear to the Board to be locally interested in the fisheries, namely :—(a) the Justices of a county assembled in general or quarter sessions; (b) a toN%n council or other urban sanitary authority ; (c) a rural sanitary authority; (d) any person being, or claiming to be, the proprietor of, or entrusted w ith the duty of improving, maintaining, managing, or regulating any harbour. On such an application the Board of Trade has power to prohibit or restrict, for a period of not more than one year, either entirely or subject to certain rules, the dredging for or taking of oysters on any oyster-bed or bank.
Stealing aysters.—Whoever steals oysters or oyster brood from an oyster bed, which is the property of another person, ana sufficiently marked out or known as such, is liable to be punished as for simple larceny, and whoever unlawfully uses a dredge, net, instrument, or engine, within an oyster-bed, which is the property of another person, for the purpose of taking oysters or oyster brood, though none are actually taken, is guilty of a misdemeanour, and liable to three months' hard labour. But no one is prevented by law from catching, or fishing for, floating fish within an oyster fishery with a net or instrument only adapted for taking floating fish.
PACKED is now a usual practice, especially with parcel delivery companies, to collect a number of parcels each directed to some different consignee, and then having packed them in one package, to consign the latter as one parcel per rail to an agent at a convenient centre for distribution amongst the various persons to whom the parcels are directed. By this means a number of parcels can be sent in one package at a lower charge per carriage than would be the case if they were forwarded separately. And not only this, but the custom affording an opportunity for profit to a distributing middleman caused the advent of the parcel delivery companies, and ultimately the parcels post. The railway companies have consequently lost an important source of profit, though they did not acquiesce therein until their obligation to carry packed parcels without extra charge had been established by the courts in such cases as, for example, Great Western Railway Co. v. Sutton.