31Police Officers may lay informations, &c.

It shall be lawful for any Police Officer to lay any information before the Magistrate, and to apply for summons, warrant, search warrant, or such other legal process as may by law issue and may be expedient under the circumstances, against any person committing an offence against any law or enactment, or against any regulation for the protection of the Revenue, or against any person committing or falling to remove any public nuisance or unwarrantable obstructions, keeping disorderly houses, harbouring thieves, disturbing the peace, obstructing the due course of justice, and the like, and to prosecute such offenders up to final judgment;
Proviso.-provided always that any rewards, forfeitures, and penalties, or shares of rewards, forfeitures, or penalties, which by law are payable to informers, and all costs of prosecution which may by any enactment be awarded to the prosecutor, shall be paid into the “General Police Fund.”