Page 140 - Bulletin 7 2003

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public drunkenness be charged as criminals and be sentenced to terms of
imprisonment.

In July 1861 the report of Sir W. Hodges, Chairman of the Commission into the

administration of law in all magistrates courts, was released. In the report he

recommended that a lock-up room and two resident police constables be provided
for Kalk Bay. He also confirmed that the situation at Kalk Bay was as per the

memorandum of June 1861 and had not changed. He endorsed the residents’
concern that there was difficulty in checking on the disorderly and intemperate

habits of the fishermen.

This report was endorsed by Mr. George W. Browning, the Resident Magistrate

of Simon’s Town, and forwarded to Sir George Grey. It appears that nothing
transpired from either the memorandum or Sir W. Hodges’ subsequent report to

Sir George Grey. Consequently, in January 1868 a further memorandum initiated

by J. Hutchinson was sent to his Excellency Sir P. Wodehouse, Governor of the
Cape Colony, requesting that Christian van Eyk be appointed constable /

policeman and be given the authority to pursue the peace of the village of Kalk
Bay, which had two main problems.

The first problem was among the fishermen themselves. There were, according to

the memorandum, many “wild and unruly characters who spent the money they

earned on drinking and drunken brawls which exposed the lives and properties of
the law abiding citizens to danger”. The second problem was the vast amount of

fish offal and refuse that was left on the Landing Place (Fishery Beach) to decay.
The stench and the proliferation of rats created considerable health problems.

The memorandum further stated that Mr. Christian van Eyk had been appointed

some three years previously in 1865 by the then-Resident Magistrate of Simon’s

Town, Mr. George M. Browning, to maintain “some degree of order at the
Landing Place”. He had done his job as best he could and sometimes had