Rules Under the Shouters Prohibition Ordinance

November 16, 1917

• No one should hold or to take part in or attend any Shouters' meeting.
• No Shouters' meeting was to be held in any part of the Colony indoors or in the open air at any time of the day or night.
• No Shouters' house* should be erected or maintained.
• No one should be shut up in a Shouters' house for the purpose of initiating such person into the ceremonies of the Shouters.
• Owners or managers of estates or lands had to inform the police of the erection of Shouters7apos; houses or the holding of Shouters' meetings on lands under their control. Any owner or manager who had knowledge of such activities and failed to report it or who knowingly permitted such activities would be guilty of an offence.
• It was an offence for any person at, or in the vicinity of, any Shouters' meeting to commit or cause to be committed, or to induce or to persuade to be committed, any act of indecency.
• Police could enter, without warrant, a house or place, night or day, where a Shouters' meeting was being held or where they suspected that such a meeting was being held. The police could also enter if they suspected that a person or persons were being kept in the building for the purpose of initiation in the ceremonies of the Shouters. They were also authorized to take the names and addresses of all the persons present at a Shouters' meeting or in a Shouters' house.
• The police also had the authority to demand the names and addresses of any person taking part in an open air meeting which they have good reason to believe was a Shouters' meeting.
• Any person refusing to give his name and address to the police when asked to do so was liable to be arrested and to be detained at a police station until his identity was established.
• Any person guilty of an offence under this Ordinance was liable, on conviction, to a fine of two hundred and forty dollars.

*Shouters' house – any house or building or room in any house or building used to hold Shouters' meetings.