Schedule 1. not within seven days after such presentation, convene a meeting, any two members of the council may, on the expiration of those seven days, convene a meeting.

(5.) Three clear days at least before any meeting of a parish council, notice thereof specifying the time and place of the intended meeting and the business to be transacted at the meeting, and signed by or on behalf of the chairman of the parish council or persons convening the meeting, shall be given to every member of the parish council, and in case of the annual meeting notice specifying the like particulars shall be given to every member of the parish council immediately after his election.

(6.) Any notice required by law to be given to the chairman or any other member of the parish council may be left at or sent by post to the usual place of abode of such chairman or member.

(7.) No business shall be transacted at any meeting of a parish council unless at least one third of the full number of members are present thereat, subject to this qualification, that in no case shall the quorum be less than three.

(8.) The names of the members present at any meeting of the parish council, as well as of those voting on each question on which a division is taken, shall be recorded, so as to show whether each vote given was for or against the question.

(9.) Every question at a meeting of a parish council shall be decided by a majority of votes of the members present and voting on that question.

(10.) In case of an equal division of votes the chairman of the meeting shall have a second or casting vote.

(11.) The parish council may, if they think fit, appoint one of their number to be vice-chairman, and the vice-chairman shall, in the absence or during the inability of the chairman, have the powers and authority of the chairman. (12.) The proceedings of a parish council shall not be invalidated by any vacancy among their members, or by any defect in the election or qualification of any members thereof.

(13.) A parish council shall hold not less than four meetings in each year, of which one shall be the annual meeting, and every such meeting shall be open to the public unless the council otherwise direct.

(14.) Every cheque or other order for payment of money by a parish council shall be signed by two members of the council.

(15.) Any notice required to be given to or served on a parish council may be given to or served on the clerk to the parish council.

(16.) The parish council may appear before any court or in any legal proceeding by their clerk or by any officer or member authorised generally or in respect of any special proceeding by resolution of the council, and their clerk or any member or officer shall, if so authorised, be at liberty to institute and carry on any proceeding which the parish council are authorised to institute and carry on.

(1.) Minutes of the proceedings of every parish council and parish meeting shall be kept in a book provided for that purpose.

(2.) A minute of proceedings at a meeting of a parish council, or of a committee of a parish or district council, or at a parish meeting, signed at the same or the next ensuing meeting by a person describing himself as or

appearing to be chairman of the meeting at which the minute is signed, shall Schedule 1. be received in evidence without further proof.

(3.) Until the contrary is proved, every meeting in respect of the proceedings whereof a minute has been so made shall be deemed to have been duly convened and held, and all the members of the meeting shall be deemed to have been duly qualified; and where the proceedings are proceedings of a committee, the committee shall be deemed to have been duly constituted, and to have had power to deal with the matters referred to in the minutes.

(4.) Any instrument purporting to be executed under the hands or under the hands and seals of the chairman and of two other members of a parish council or of a parish meeting shall, until the contrary is proved, be deemed to have been duly so executed.

(5.) Subject to the provisions of this Act, a parish council may make, vary, and revoke standing orders for the regulation of their proceedings and business, and of the proceedings and business at parish meetings for a rural parish having a parish council.

(6.) Where there is no council for a rural parish, the parish meeting may, subject to the provisions of this Act, regulate their own proceedings and business.

PART FOUR.

Proceedings of Committees of Parish or District Councils.

(1.) The quorum, proceedings, and place of meeting of a committee, whether within or without the parish or district, and the area (if any) within which the committee are to exercise their authority, shall be such as may be determined by regulations of the council or councils appointing the committee.

(2.) Subject to such regulations, the quorum, proceedings, and place of meeting, whether within or without the parish or district, shall be such as the committee direct, and the chairman at any meeting of the committee shall have a second or casting vote.

Section 56.

SECOND SCHEDULE.

ENACTMENTS REPEALED (h).

*

(h) See note to s. 89, ante, p. 658.

Short title.

Music and dancing licences.

MUSIC AND DANCING LICENCES (MIDDLESEX)
ACT, 1894.

(57 & 58 VICT. CAP. 15) (i).

An Act to amend the Law as regards Music and Dancing Licences in
Middlesex.
[3rd July 1894.]

1. This Act may be cited for all purposes as the Music and Dancing Licences (Middlesex) Act, 1894.

2. For the regulation of places ordinarily used (k) for public dancing or music, or other public entertainment of the like kind, the

(i) The Disorderly Houses Act, 1751 (25 Geo. 2, c. 36), s. 2, provided that any house, room, garden, or other place kept for public dancing, music, or other public entertainment of the like kind in the cities of London and Westminster, or within 20 miles thereof without a licence from quarter sessions should be deemed a disorderly house or place. Under the Local Government Act, 1888, s. 3, ante, p. 7, the powers and duties of the quarter sessions as to licensing for music and dancing were transferred to the county councils in area within the operation of the Act. The Act is now repealed as far as Middlesex is concerned; see s. 2 (12), post, and the provisions in the text substituted. The Act may be usefully compared with s. 50 of the Public Health Act, 1890. See Lumley's Public Health, p. 594.

(k) The words of 25 Geo. 2, c. 26, s. 2, were "kept for public dancing, etc." Here the words are "ordinarily used" and in sub-s. (1) "kept or used." These words probably mean that there must be a habitual keeping or use of the room for public dancing, etc., though the reference in sub-s. (1) to a licence for the purpose of a charitable entertainment seems to indicate that a licence is necessary even for a single entertainment; and see sub-s. (11), infra.

The following cases decided under the Act of 1751 may be usefully referred to as showing what amounted to keeping a house for public dancing under that Act.

The statute extends to houses kept for the purpose of private dancing, not to public places only. Clarke v. Searle, 1 Esp. 25.

A room in which musical performances are regularly exhibited, though it is not kept or used solely for that purpose, is within the statute, and requires a licence. Bellis v. Beale, 2 Esp. 592.

A room kept by a dancing master for the instruction of his scholars and subscribers, and to which persons are not indiscriminately admitted, is not within the statute. Bellis v. Burghall, 2 Esp. 722.

To subject a party to the penalties of the statute for keeping a house for illegal dancing and music, it is not necessary that the party who kept the house should take money for admission. Archer v. Willingrice 4 Esp. 186.

A temporary use of a room in a public house for the purpose of dancing on a particular festival or occasion does not subject the owner to the penalty of the statute. Shutt v. Lewis, 5 Esp. 128.

The statute extends to licensed taverns and hotels, and it is no defence that the company frequenting the performance was respectable or that the admission money was not received for the benefit of the keeper of the house. Green v. Bothroyd, 3 C. & P. 471.

A room used for public music or dancing is within the statute, although it is not exclusively used for those purposes, and although no money is taken for admission; but the mere accidental or occasional use of a room for either or both of these purposes will not be within the statute. Gregory v. Jupp, 6 C. & P. 271; 1 M. & Rob. 313.

In an action to recover the penalty for keeping an unlicensed house for public dancing, it appeared that music, dancing, etc., had occasionally taken

following provisions shall have effect in the administrative county Sect. 2. of Middlesex; namely,

(1.) After the thirty-first day of December one thousand eight hundred and ninety-four, a house, room, garden, or other

place at the defendant's house (a public house), and that no money was taken by him for admission, but the rooms were let to persons who sold tickets and received money for admission at the door; but there was no direct evidence that the defendant knew of this practice :-Held, that there was evidence to go to the jury of a keeping of the house by the defendant for the purposes mentioned in the statute, and that the judge was wrong in directing a non-suit. Marks v. Benjamin, 3 M. & W. 565; 3 Jur. 1194.

No action can be maintained on an agreement to exhibit entertainment for gain in a place where, by the above statute, a licence cannot be obtained. Levy v. Yates, 8 A. & E. 129.

A room within the limits of the Act kept for public dancing or music without a licence is a disorderly house under 25 Geo. 2, c. 36, s. 2, though no disorderly or improper conduct is allowed in the said room. The preamble does not confine this section to "places of entertainment for the lower sort of people," where robberies are likely to ensue. The defendant when indicted for keeping such house must prove his licence. R. v. Wolfe and Others, 13 J. P. 428.

A. kept a room which was used as a supper room and place of general refreshment, there being at the end of it a raised platform, on which stood a piano, and where songs were constantly sung. Programmes of the performance were laid about in different parts of the room. The company was respectable, and no money was paid for admission, nor any extra charge made for the articles consumed there. An action having been brought for a penalty under 25 Geo, 2., c. 36, the judge directed the jury to say whether the room was used for the purpose of supplying refreshments in the manner of an hotel, the music and singing being incidental merely, or whether it was used principally for musical performances; and ultimately he directed them to consider whether the room was used for both purposes, in which latter case the informer would be entitled to the verdict. The jury found that the room was used for the purpose of an hotel, and found a verdict for A. :-Held, that although the verdict might be against the evidence, there was no misdirection. Hall v. Green, 2 C. L. R. 427; 23 L. J. M. C. 15; 9 Exch. 247.

Under similar words in a local Act, it was held that to bring a case within the statute the music and dancing must be an essential part of the entertainment, and not merely accessories to it. It is not necessary that the dancing should be by the public. Quaglieni v. Matthews, 6 B. & S. 474; 34 L. J. M. C. 116; 11 Jur. (N.s.) 636; 29 J. P. 439.

Where a room above the bar of a public-house was used for music and dancing, the keeper of the house was held liable not for having a licence, though the persons using the room paid nothing to him for it. Frailing v. Messenger, 16 L. T. (N.S.) 497; 31 J. P. 423.

Under the statute the justices have a discretion to grant a licence for music only; and the keeper of a house with a music licence only is liable to a penalty for keeping a house without a licence if he permits public dancing in the house. Brown v. Nugent, L. R. 6 Q. B. 693; 7 Q. B. 588; 40 L. J. M. C. 166; 26 L. T. (N.s.) 880; 20 W. R. 89; 36 J. P. 22.

C. was lessee of a theatre duly licensed under 6 & 7 Vict. c. 68; he also held a justices' licence under 25 Geo. 2, c. 36, and on Ash Wednesday he gave a concert in the theatre, to which the public were admitted for money. Both his licences contained a regulation that no entertainment should be given on Ash Wednesday. It was held that he did not commit an offence against the 25 Geo. 2, c. 36, as the concert was not a public entertainment ejusdem generis with public dancing, and, at all events, the room was not habitually kept for such entertainment. Syres v. Conquest, 28 L. T. (N.S.) 402; 21 W. R. 524 ;

37 J. P. 342.

Under similar provisions in a local Act it was held that the justices had an implied right to grant the licence for one year, though no period was mentioned

Sect. 2 (1).

place, whether licensed or not for the sale of wines, spirits, beer, or other fermented or distilled liquors, shall not be kept or used for public dancing, singing, music, or other public entertainment of the like kind, without a licence for the purpose or purposes (1) for which the same respectively is to be used first obtained from the County Council of Middlesex and for the registration thereof a fee of five shillings shall be paid by the person applying therefor; provided that such fee shall in no case be payable by any applicant in respect of any licence granted for the purpose of a charitable or other like entertainment:

(2.) The County Council may at any meeting convened with fourteen days' previous notice, or at any adjournment thereof, grant licences to such persons as they think fit to keep or use houses, rooms, gardens, or places for all or any of the purposes aforesaid upon such terms and conditions, and subject to such restrictions, as they by the respective licences determine, and every licence shall be in force for one year or for such shorter period as the County Council on the grant of the licence shall determine, unless the same shall have been previously revoked as hereinafter provided (m):

(3.) The County Council may from time to time at any such
meeting as aforesaid transfer any such licence to such person
as they think fit:

(4.) Each person shall in each case give fourteen days' notice to
the clerk of the County Council and to the superintendent
of police of the police division in which the house, room,
garden, or place is situated, of his intention to apply for
any such licence, or for the transfer of any such licence:
(5.) Any house, room, garden, or place kept or used for any of
the purposes aforesaid without such licence first obtained

in the statute, and that they were entitled to refuse to renew it. Hoffman v Bond, 32 L. T. (N.S.) 775; 40 J. P. 5.

The defendant kept a skating rink, which was enclosed by a wall, and was partly roofed with canvas and partly open to the air. It was open for skating in the daytime and in the evening. In the daytime there was no music. In the evening a band played operatic and dance music while the skaters skated. The defendant had no licence. It was held that the defendant might be properly convicted of keeping a place of public entertainment of a like kind to music and dancing without a licence, and, semble, that he might also be convicted of keeping a place for public music without a licence. R. v. Tucker, 2 Q. B. D. 417: 46 L. J. M. C. 197; 36 L. T. (N.S.) 478; 25 W. R. 697; 41 J. P. 294.

(1) See Brown v. Nugent, supra.

(m) Applications for licences must be determined judicially. See R. v. London County Council, [1892] 1 Q. B. 190; 61 L. J. M. C. 75; 66 L. T. (N.S.) 168; 40 W. R. 285; 56 J. P. 8; Royal Aquarium Society v. Parkinson, [1892] 1 Q. B. 431; 61 L. J. Q. B. 409; 66 L. T. (N.S.) 513; 40 W. R. 450; 50 J. P. 404. And see the notes to s. 3 (v) of the Local Government Act, 1888, ante, pp. 7, 8.