Telephone Act 1889 (WA)

&Rearm Aurtratta.

ANNO QUINQUAGESIMO TERTIO

VICTORIA', REGINA,.

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No. VII.

AN ACT to protect Telephones.

[Assented to, 29th November, 1889. ]

consent of the Legislative Council thereof, as follows :— BE it enacted by His Excellency the Governor of Western

Australia and its Dependencies, by and with the advice and

THIS Act may be cited for all purposes as " The Telephone Short Title.

Act, 1889."

2. THE provisions of the Act passed in the forty-seventh year E t 477

of Her Majesty intituled " An Act to regulate and protect Electric Nriror	tol Lie. le"
Telegraphs " shall, so far as applicable, be extended to the regulation Phones. and protection of telephones, as fully as if the word " telegraph " throughout the said Act had been defined to include the word
" telephone."

3. WHOSOEVER shall unlawfully and maliciously cut, break, Mauctous injury to dons

throw down, destroy, injure, or remove any battery, machinery, wire, telephones.

cable, post, or other matter or thing whatsoever, being part of or

being

53° VICTORIIE, No. 7.

The Telephone Act, 1889.

being used or employed in or about any telephonic system, or in the working thereof, or shall unlawfully and maliciously prevent or obstruct in any manner whatsoever the sending, conveyance, or delivery of any communication by any such telephone, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and being convicted thereof shall be liable, at the discretion of the Court, to be imprisoned for any term not exceeding two years, with or without hard labor : Provided that if it shall appear to any Justice, on the examination of any person charged with any offence against this section, that it is not expedient to the ends of justice that the same should be prosecuted by indict- ment, the Justice may proceed summarily to hear and determine the same, and the offender shall, on conviction thereof, at the discretion of the Justice, either be committed to the common gaol or house of correction, there to be imprisoned only, or to be imprisoned and kept to hard labor, for any term not exceeding three months, or else shall forfeit and pay such sum of money not exceeding Ten pounds as to the Justice shall seem meet.

In the name and on behalf of the Queen I hereby assent

to this Act.

F. NAPIER BROOME, Governor.

By Authority: RICHARD PETHER, Government Printer, Perth.