Making this proclamation is called "reading the Riot Act." Forthwith thereafter the authorities are at liberty to set about the dispersal of the assembly, for the persons assembled have no right under the Act to continue together during the hour mentioned in the Act. If they do so continue they run the risk of death or injury at the hands of the authorities in the course of the dispersal, and if they survive either of those calamities, and continue beyond the hour, they incur a liability to penal servitude for life or two years' hard labour. It is also a felony to prevent the reading of the Riot Act ; and a punishable offence for more than ten persons to come together to present a petition to the King or Parliament, or for more than fifty persons to assemble near the House of Parliament during its session. Under a statute of Henry IV. any two justices, together with the sheriff or under-sheriff of the county, may suppress a riot, assembly, or rout, arrest the rioters, and record upon the spot the nature and circumstances of the whole transaction. This record is alone a sufficient conviction of the offenders. Every one with sonic few exceptions, when so called upon by the magistrate, must attend to suppress a riot, under pain of fine and imprisonment ; and any battery, wounding, or killing the rioters that may happen in the suppression, is justifiable. The persons excepted from this obligation are women, clergymen, decrepit persons, and infants under fifteen.
Damage caused by riot should be claimed out of the police rate from the local police authorities, and if they do not make a proper settlement the claim can be enforced by an action. The right to such damages is now regulated by the Riot Damages Act, 1886, but it cannot be enforced so far as damages have been covered by insurance. Damages may be obtained even if the riot has taken place in a private place. See AFFRAY.
ROYAL ARMS.—No one, without the authority of his Majesty or a member of the Royal family or a government department, may, under a penalty of c£'20, lawfully use in connection with his business the royal arms or arms so nearly resembling them as to be calculated to deceive, in such a manner as to be calculated to lead other persons to believe that he is carrying on his business by or under royal or government authority. Proceedings for an injunc tion may be taken against an offender by any person authorised to use the royal arms ; and a society of business men entitled to exhibit the royal arms—the Society of Royal Warrant Holders—are careful to see that proceedings are taken when necessary. An essential ingredient of the offence is that the person charged is exhibiting the arms in such a way as " to lead other persons to believe that he is carrying on his business by or under royal or government authority." And whether this is so or not is always a ques
tion of fact depending upon the circumstances of the particular case. The royal warrant is the authority usually relied upon, but it is possible that in a special case the business man may be able to set up an im plied authority. But no such authority would be implied merely because he is the holder of letters patent, bearing the royal arms, granted to him in connection with some invention he uses in the business. Thus a butcher would not have an implied authority by reason of the fact that he holds such letters patent for an improved method of hanging carcases (Cameron v. Kennedy). The foregoing depends upon a section of the Patents Act, 1907, but in section 20 of the Merchandise Marks Act there is special provision with regard to certain false representation as to royal warrant. A penalty of .V20 is incurred by any one who falsely represents that any goods are made by a person holding a royal warrant, or for the service of his Majesty, or any of the Royal family, or any government department.
The following case, in which a well-known firm of London drapers were recently summoned before a magistrate for using the royal arms in connection with their trade in a maimer calculated to lead persons to believe that they had the authority from his Majesty to do so, is of considerable interest when read in the light of the above statement of the law. The particular complaint of the prosecution was that the royal arins were carved in the stonework above each of the shops of the defendants, who were not on the register of royal warrant holders. Against this the defendants stated that they had carried on business in the same premises for over fifty years ; that the premises were leased to them by her late Majesty's Woods and Forests Commissioners subject to a covenant in the lease that the architectural decorations and walls of the buildings should not be cut or altered ; that the coats of arms were very small and were carved in the recesses in the walls forty feet above the pavement ; that the premises were crown property, and the arms were merely used for ornamentation, and not for trade purposes ; and that the firm bad never held themselves out to be royal warrant holders In any shape or form. In the result the summons was adjourned to enable the defendants to come to some arrangement with their landlords with a view to the obliteration of the arms.
is the duty of the customs officers to board and search every ship arriving at a port or place in the United Kingdom, with a view to the prevention of smuggling. Merely boarding a ship is not rummaging. There must be a thorough search in the strict sense of the word. See IMPORTATION AND EXPORTATION.