FUGITIVE OFFENDERS ACT.

Kumara Times, Issue 2318, 1 February 1884, Page 2

FUGITIVE OFFENDERS ACT.

With the commencement of the present year has come into operation a law which is likely to have a salutary effect in regard to fugitive offenders. It consists of the application of the second portion of the Imperial measure known as the Fugitive Offenders Act. The provisions have not only been extended to this colony but to Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, New Zealand, Tasmania, Western Australia, and Fiji* and this has been done on the representations of these Colonies to the Imperial authorities. Hitherto the arrest of fugitive offenders: could only be accomplished with considerable trouble, and such offenders could not be arrested if they had reached another Colony unless they had committed crimes to the sentences for which the penalty of hard labour was attached. Thus many persons were favoured with immunity from arrest, and men who deserted their wives or children especially had only to cross the border and enjoy a life undisturbed by any visions of apprehending constables. The new dispensation has changed all this, and now by a simple process fugitive offenders guilty of any offence punishable by law—even drunkenness, it is presvmed—may be extradited back. Warrants for thejr apprehension, are issued, which have only to be backed by a judge of the Supreme Court of the Colony to which offenders have fled, whereupon arrests are made. Sydney paper.