Chap. 312.—An ACT to provide for the separate accommodation of white and
colored passengers in the sitting, sleeping, and eating apartments of
steamboats plying in the waters within the jurisdiction of the common-
wealth, and to provide certain police powers for captains, pursers, and
other officers in command to enforce such regulations and to prevent and
suppress disorderly conduct on said boats.

Approved February 9, 1900.

1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia, That it shall
be the duty of any captain, purser, or other officer in command of any
steamboat carrving passengers and plving in the waters within the
jurisdiction of the commonwealth to assign white and colored passengers
on said boats to the respective locations they are to occupy as passen-
gers while on said boats; and that it shall be the dutv of said captain,
purser, or other officer in command to separate as far as the construc-
tion of his boat and due consideration for the comfort of the passengers
will permit, the white and colored passengers on said boat in the sitting.
sleeping, and eating apartments: provided, however, that no discrimina-
tion shall be made in the quality and convenience of accommodation
afforded passengers in said locations: and provided, that this section
shall not apply to nurses or attendants traveling with their employers,
nor to officers in charge of prisoners.

2. Any captain, purser, or other officer in command of said boat whe
shall fail or refuse to carry out the provisions of sections one of this
act shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and may be proceeded
against according to law, and upon conviction thereof, shall be fined no
less than twenty-five dollars nor more than one hundred dollars fot
each offense.

3. Any passenger or passengers traveling on any steamboat plving ir
the waters within the jurisdiction of the commonwealth who shal.
wilfully refuse to occupy the location, whether of sitting, sleeping, o1
eating, set apart or assigned by the captain, purser, or other officer ir
command of such boat, or behaves in a riotous or disorderly manner
he, she, or they shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and on convic
tion thereof shall be fined not less than five dollars nor more than fift
dollars, or confined in jail not less than thirty davs, or both, in the dis
cretion of the court; and such person mav be ejected from said boat
the officers thereof at any landing place of said boat, and, if necessarv
such assistance may be invoked by such person in charge of such boa’
as they may require to eject such passenger: and provided, that in cas
of such ejectment neither the captain or other officer in charge of suct
boat, nor the steamboat company owning or operating same, shall b
liable.

4, This act shall be in force from July first, nineteen hundred.