of Parliament, or to any person holding any office usually granted under letters patent for any estate of inheritance or freehold. Lords of parliament are also disabled from voting, by a resolution of the House of Commons.

Qualification of County Electors.-Before the Reform Act, the qualification of county voters was regulated by the 8 Henry VI., c. 7, by which the suffrage was limited to such as possessed freeholds of the value of 40s. a-year at the least, clear of all charges. These freeholds, however, only confer a vote for the county within which they are situated. The Reform Act (2 Will. IV., c. 45, 7th June, 1832) has partially restrained the franchise in respect of freeholds for lives, but has greatly extended it in respect of other property, by conferring a right of voting upon certain lessees, leaseholders, and tenants by copy of court roll, or other similar tenure. By that Act, no person is to vote in the election of knights of the shire, or of members for any city or town being a county of itself, in respect of any freehold lands in which he has only a life estate, whether for his own life or the lives of others, unless in actual and bonâ fide occupation thereof, or except they came to him by marriage, marriage settlement, devise, or promotion to any benefice or office, or unless they are of the clear yearly value of not less than 107. above all rents and charges. All persons, however, who were in possession of such life estates at the time of passing the Act are expressly excepted. By the same Act, the elective franchise for counties has been extended to persons seised at law or in equity of any lands or tenements of copyhold or any other tenure for their own lives, or for the lives of others, or for any other larger estate, of the clear yearly value of 10l. per annum. Leaseholders of lands of that value, whatever may be their tenure, whose leases were originally created for a term of not less than 60 years, and leaseholders of lands of the clear yearly value of 50l. whose leases were originally created for a term of not less than 20 years, are now also entitled to vote; so, also, are all persons who occupy as tenants any lands or tenements for which they are bonâ fide liable to a yearly rent of not less than 50!., subject, nevertheless, to this proviso, that no person being only a sublessee, or the assignee of any under-lease, shall have a right to vote in respect of any such term of 60 or 20 years, unless in actual occupation of the premises.

The charges of which the lands are to be clear do not, it should be observed, include public or parliamentary taxes, church, county, or parochial rates.

Mortgagees and trustees are not entitled to vote in respect of their trust estates, unless in actual possession, or receipt of the rents and profits [to their own use, as it should seem, § 26]; nor is any freeholder entitled to vote in a county election in respect of lands and premises in his own occupation, which do or might confer on him the right of voting for any city or borough; and no copyholder, leaseholder, or other tenant, can vote in a county election in respect of lands and premises which do or might confer on him, or any other person, the right of voting for any city or borough.

Before any person can vote at the election of knights of the shire, he must have been duly registered; and no freeholder, copyholder,

customary tenant, or tenant in ancient demesne, is to be so registered in respect of any lands, unless he have been in actual possession, or in receipt of the rents and profits for his own use for six calendar months, at the least, previous to the last day of July in such year; and no such leaseholder, occupier, or tenant, is to be so registered in respect of any lands he may so hold, unless he shall have been in actual possession, or in the receipt of the rents and profits for his own use for 12 calendar months, at the least, next previous to the last day in July in such year. All lands or tenements, however, which may come to any person at any time within the above-mentioned periods by descent, succession, marriage, marriage settlement, or promotion to any benefice in the church, or any office, are excepted; and for these a person may have his name registered as a voter at any time, however short his possession.

Whatever may be the amount of property which a person possesses in any one county, it confers only a single vote: the same person may, however, possess votes for different counties, if he have lands of a sufficient value within each.

Qualification of Electors in Boroughs. The qualification of electors in cities and boroughs depends on different principles. The prevalent qualification in corporate cities or towns was formerly the freedom of the place; but it differed according to their respective charters, customs, and constitutions. In some, the right of voting resided in the freemen or liverymen; in others, it was vested in the occupiers of certain ancient tenements called burgage tenements; and in others, again, all who occupied a house, or even an apartment in a house, were entitled to vote. The Reform Act abolished the greater number of these qualifications for the future; but it preserved entire the rights of the then existing voters. At present, therefore, no person is entitled to vote in the election of members for any city or borough, except in respect of some right conferred by the Reform Act, or as a burgess or freeman, or (in the case of a city or town being a county of itself) as a freeholder or burgage tenant: provided, nevertheless, that all the present electors (i. e. persons who, at the passing of the Act on 7th June, 1832, were electors) shall continue during their lives to exercise their right, at least if they so long remain qualified, according to the usage or custom of their respective cities or boroughs, or according to any law then in force, and shall also duly comply with the provisions of the Act in regard to registration: but no person is to be registered in any year unless he shall, on the last day of July in such year, be qualified in such manner as would entitle him to vote if such day were the day of election, and the Act had not been passed; nor unless such person (where his qualification shall be in any city or borough) shall have resided therein for six calendar months next previous to the last day of July in such year, or within seven statute miles of the place where the poll has theretofore been taken; nor unless such person (where his qualification should be within any place sharing in the election for any city or borough) shall have resided for six calendar months within such place, or within seven statute miles of the place sharing in the election; and if any person neglect to have his name registered in respect of his reserved franchise for two successive years

it is lost for ever, unless such omission arise in consequence of the elector having received parochial relief, or in consequence of absence in his Majesty's naval or military service.

Under the new franchise, which is the only franchise in the boroughs created by the Reform Act, and which is given to all the older ones (with the exception of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, in which no change was made) in addition to the other franchises previously existing, all persons who occupy within any eity or borough, as owners or tenants, any house, shop, or other building, being, either separately or jointly with any land within such place, also occupied by them as owners or tenants under the same landlord, of the clear yearly value of not less than 107., are, if duly registered, entitled to vote in the election of a member or members for such city or borough; and it is further enacted, that persons, being the joint occupiers or owners of premises within a city or borough, shall each be entitled to vote, provided the clear yearly value of the premises when divided among them give to each a sum of not less than 10%. :* no person, however, is entitled to be registered in any year unless he has occupied or owned such premises for 12 calendar months previous to the last day of July in such year, nor unless such person (where such premises are situate in any parish or township in which there shall be a rate for the relief of the poor) shall have been rated in respect of such premises, nor unless he shall have paid, on or before the 20th day of July in such year, all the poor rates and assessed taxes which may have become due in respect of such premises previously to the 6th day of April then next preceding. It is also necessary for the voter to have resided in the place for which he claims to vote six months previously to the 6th day of July in such year, or within seven statute miles thereof. It is not necessary, however, for him to have resided the whole of the time on the same premises; it is sufficient if the premises are within the borough, and have been occupied in immediate succession, and that all the rates and taxes have been paid. If persons are omitted in the rate, the Act gives them a power to insist on being rated; with this proviso, that, where under any Act of Parliament the landlord is liable for the poor's rate, the fact of rating the tenant, though the tenant insist on being so rated, shall not be taken to exempt the landlord from his liability in case the tenant fail to pay.

The Act also declares, that in every city or town being a county of itself, in the election of members for which freeholders or burgage tenants either with or without any superadded qualification, have a right to vote, every such freeholder or burgage tenant shall have a right to vote, if duly registered: but no person is to be registered in any year in respect of any freehold or burgage tenement, unless he shall have been in actual possession, or in receipt of the rents and profits thereof, for 12 calendar months next previous to the last day

This is one of the clauses under which fictitious voters are most easily manufactured. Ten individuals, the partisans of a particular family or candidate, join together and buy (or perhaps receive as a douceur) a house or other property in a borough worth 100l. a-year, and become, by so doing, vested with the franchise, and yet not one of them may be resident within the borough or have any interest in it: : an abuse of this sort should be put an end to.

of July in such year (except where the same shall have come to him by descent, succession, marriage, marriage settlement, demise, or promotion to any benefice in the church, or to any office); nor unless he shall have resided for 6 calendar months, previous to the last day of July in such year, within such city or town, or within 7 statute miles of it.

The Act also makes it necessary that all burgesses or freemen, or freemen and liverymen, shall be duly registered; but no such person is to be so registered unless he shall, on the last day of July in each year, be qualified in such manner as would entitle him then to vote if such day were the day of election; nor unless he shall have resided for 6 calendar months, next previous to the last day of July in such year, within such place, or within 7 statute miles of the place where the poll has theretofore been taken. No person, however, elected or admitted a burgess or freeman since the 1st day of March, 1831, otherwise than in respect of birth or servitude, is to be entitled to vote as such, or to be registered; nor is any person to be so entitled as a burgess or freeman in respect of birth, unless his right be originally derived from or through some person who was a burgess or freeman, or entitled to be admitted as such, previous to the 1st day of March, 1831, or from or through any person who since that time has become a burgess or freeman in respect of servitude. Neither is any person to vote in the election of members for any city or borough (other than a city or town being a county of itself, in the election for which freeholders or burgage tenants have a right to vote) in respect of any estate or interest in any burgage tenement or freehold acquired by him since the 1st day of March, 1831, unless the same shall have come to or been acquired by such person since that day and previous to the passing of the Act, by descent, succession, marriage settlement, or promotion to any benefice in the church, or to any office. It is also provided, that no person shall be registered as a voter, who shall, within 12 calendar months next previous to the last day of of July in such year, have received parochial relief or other similar alms.

Subject to these alterations, all the previous laws relating to the qualifications and disqualifications of electors remain in force. Neither was any alteration made in the representation of the Universities. In these the qualification of the electors consists in their having taken the degree of Master of Arts, and being members of the convocation

or senate.

Registration. With respect to the lists of county voters, the overseers and churchwardens of every parish are charged with the duty of preparing them every year from claims sent to them by the parties, and from the register of the past year. The lists so prepared are exhibited to public view, and the persons named in them are liable to be objected to either by the parish officers or by third parties.

At the same time of the year, the parish officers and town clerks of cities and boroughs prepare lists of their several electors, which are, in like manner, exposed to public view, that objections may be made or claims put in by those who have been omitted.

Revision of the Lists.-During the summer circuits in every year, barristers are appointed, in Middlesex by the Lord Chief Justice; and

in the other counties by the senior judge of assize, to revise the lists of the borough and of the county voters. These barristers make their circuits (of which they are required to give due notice) between the 15th of September and the 25th of October. The lists prepared by the parish officers are then submitted to them, in the counties by the clerks of the peace, and in the boroughs and cities by the town clerks and parish officers. Persons duly objected to are then obliged to establish their qualifications by evidence; and those who claim to be inserted in the list must show themselves entitled to be placed on it. The barristers expunge or insert the names accordingly, and sign the corrected lists. These lists, so settled by the revising barristers, are transmitted (if for a county) to the clerks of the peace, for the purpose of being copied and formed into a methodical register of county electors. The lists of the voters in cities or boroughs are delivered to the returning officers, whose duty it is to copy them in like manner in the form of registers. The lists so copied constitute the registers of electors qualified to vote at any election between the 1st day of November in the year in which such registers shall have been made, and the 1st day of November in the succeeding year.

All expenses incurred by the clerk of the peace of any county or district in causing the lists to be copied out and made into a register or otherwise, are to be defrayed by the treasurer of the county or district, the account having been first laid before the justices at the quarter sessions. The expenses of the revising barristers are paid by the Treasury.

2. Qualification of Representatives. The same circumstances, speaking generally, which disqualify a person from being an elector, disqualify him, also, from being a representative; with this addition, that an alien cannot, even though naturalised, sit in parliament. The judges of the courts of law, with the exception of the Master of the Rolls, are specially disqualified: and this, also, is the case with clergymen; contractors with government; bankrupts; commissioners of excise, customs, and stamps; and a long list of functionaries engaged in the collection of the revenue, in the administration of justice, and in the various departments of the public service. It is now, indeed, become a common practice on creating an office to attach to it such disqualification. But, though reasonable, this jealousy of the Crown' is of modern growth, for, at common law, official service under the Crown was not supposed to render a person unfit to represent his fellow-subjects, unless the service were incompatible with his attendance in the House of Commons. Persons convicted of bribery at any election, or of treating the electors, are also incapable of sitting in that parliament. But, with these peculiar exceptions, all persons may sit in parliament of common right; provided, 1st, they engage, the true faith of a Christian," to abstain from all designs hostile to the Church (a condition which excludes Jews); and, 2nd, that they have the qualification required by the 1 and 2 Victoria, c. 48, or that they are possessed of 600l. a-year, arising out of real or personal property, or both, if knights of the shire, and 300l. a-year if burgesses. If a person not so qualified be elected and returned, the return is void. These qualifications, however, are not required in

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