1935   Present  :  Soertsz A.J.

TOUSSAINT v. CECILIA.

 593-P. C. Gampola, 7,522.

Brothel-Meaning of term-House of ill-fame-Ordinance No. 5 of 1889, s. 1.

A brothel is a house of ill-fame to which men. resort for purposes of prostitution with women, who are to be found in the place or with women who resort to or are introduced to the house.

APPEAL from a conviction by the Police Magistrate of Gampola.

C. E. S. Perera, for accused, appellant.

October 16, 1935. SOERTSZ A.J.-

The accused in this case was charged with having kept and managed a brothel in breach of section 1 of Ordinance No. 5 of 1889.

Several cases have been cited to me to support the proposition that " a solitary instance of prostitution is insufficient to render a house a brothel". Quite apart from " authority", it must indeed be so. Generally a solitary instance of prostitution in a house no more makes that house a brothel than one swallow makes a summer. But in certain cases, to use the words in Stroud's Judicial Dictionary, " the one proved instance may itself prove it to be, not a solitary, but one of many instances". That, in my opinion, is the case here.

The defin