described in the register may be. In case no booth shall happen to be provided for any particular parish, district, or part, the votes of persons voting in respect of property situate there, or having their place of abode therein, may be taken at any of the booths. The votes of freemen residing out of the limits of the city or borough may be taken at any of the booths. Public notice of the situation, division, and allotment of the different booths must be given two days before the commencement of the poll by the returning officer.

London, the Universities, Monmouth, the Welsh boroughs, New Shoreham, Cricklade, Aylesbury, and East Retford, are specially provided for in this respect.

By the 5 and 6 W. IV. c. 36. these provisions are somewhat altered. The returning officer must, without any requisition, so provide that not more than three hundred electors shall be allotted to each booth or compartment, and on the requisition of any candidate, or his proposer or seconder, the booths shall be so constructed that not more than one hundred voters shall be allotted to each. But in this case the requisitionist must pay the additional expense. If this requisition be made on or before the nomition day the returning officer forthwith gives public notice of the situation of the booths, and this notice then takes place of the two-days' notice required by the Reform Act.

All polling booths are to be erected at the equal expense of the candidates (Reform Act, sec. 71.), by contract if the candidates please, if not, then by the returning officer. If the returning officer

cause the erection, "the expense to be incurred for the booth or booths to be erected at the principal place of election for any county, riding, parts, or divisions of a county, or at any of the polling places so to be appointed as aforesaid, shall not exceed the sum of forty pounds in respect of any one such principal place of election, or any one such polling place; and that the expense to be incurred for any booth or booths to be erected for any parish, district, or part of any city or borough shall not exceed the sum of twenty-five pounds in respect of any one such parish, district, or part; and that all deputies appointed by the sheriff or other returning of ficer shall be paid each two guineas by the day, and all clerks employed in taking the poll shall be paid each one guinea by the day, at the expense of the candidates at such election: Provided always, that if any person shall be proposed without his consent, then the person so proposing him shall be liable to defray his share of the said expenses, in like manner as if he had been a candidate: Provided also, that the sheriff or returning officer may, if he shall think fit, instead of erecting such booth or booths as aforesaid, procure or hire and use any houses or other buildings for the purpose of taking the poll therein, subject always to the same regulations, provisions, liabilities, and limitations of expense as are herein before mentioned with regard to booths for taking the poll."

By the 16 and 17 Vic. c. 68. sec. 6. no poll for any place in England or Wales "shall be taken. at any inn, hotel, tavern, public-house, or other premises licensed for the sale of beer, wines, or

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spirits, or in any booth, hall, or room, or other place directly communicating therewith, unless by consent of all the candidates expressed in writing;" and by the Reform Act no nominations shall be made or elections held for a borough in any place of public worship.

The polling places being now erected, and duly lettered to indicate the divisions, we must now provide for their use.

Appointment of deputy returning officer.By the sixty-fifth section of the Reform Act the sheriff is empowered to appoint a deputy to preside at the principal place of election, and at each polling place; and by the sixty-eighth section the returning officer of boroughs, "if the booths be in different places," has the same power.

By sec. 73. of the Reform Act it is provided that every deputy of a sheriff or other returning officer shall have the same power of administering the oaths and affirmations as required by law, and of appointing commissioners for administering such oaths and affirmations as may by law be administered by commissioners, or sheriff, or other returning officer, by virtue of that or any other act, and subject to the same regulations and provisions in every respect as such sheriff or other returning officer.

The appointment had better be in writing, but any words denoting the intention to appoint will suffice. The following expresses all that is requisite.

County of Berks.

Election of Knights of the Shire.

I, A. B., high sheriff of the county of Berks, do hereby appoint you, C.D., of Abingdon, gentleman, to be my deputy at the forthcoming election of knights of the shire, and I appoint you to act as such deputy at the principal place of election or at the polling booth for the district of- -]. Given under my seal of office this 1857. day of

A. B.

The duty of the deputy is to preside in the booth, to decide any questions upon which the poll clerks may be in doubt, to administer the bribery or the identity oath when required, to order the constables (whom the returning officers are directed by sec. 90. of the Reform Act to provide at each booth) to take into custody persons accused by the candidate's agent of personation, to receive and enter votes tendered as having been claimed before the revising barrister and rejected, and generally to exercise all the powers and duties of his principal.

It would appear to be no objection to the validity of an election that the deputies were minors.

We have already seen (ante p. 49) that the deputies are to be paid two guineas a day at the expense of the candidates.

Commissioners may also be still appointed to take the oaths that may be tendered to the voters; but under the new enactments for regulating the voting these can never be necessary, I pass it over as an obsolete ceremony.

SO

Preparation of poll books. So much of the Reform Act as referred to the forming of a register, has been repealed by the 6 Vic. c. 18.

The provisions which are substituted are as folfows:

County lists to be transmitted to clerk of the peace, and to be by him copied into book.

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XLVII. And be it enacted, That the said lists of voters for each county, signed as aforesaid, shall be forthwith transmitted by the revising barrister to the clerk of the peace of the same county, and the clerk of the peace shall keep the said lists among the records of the sessions, and shall forthwith cause the said lists to be copied, and printed in a book or books, arranged with the names in each parish or township, in strict alphabetical order, according to the surnames, and with every polling district in alphabetical order, and with every parish or township within such polling district likewise in the same order; and shall, after the list for each polling district, insert a list in like alphabetical order of all persons whose names shall not appear in any of the said lists for such polling district, but who shall in manner hereinbefore mentioned have been registered by the revising barrister to vote at the polling place of such last-mentioned district; and shall in the said book prefix to every name its proper number, beginning the numbers from the first name, and continuing them in a regular series down to the last name: Provided always, that a number as aforesaid shall be prefixed to the name of every person in every such list inserted after the last list for any polling district as aforesaid; and no number, but an asterisk only, shall be prefixed to the name of the same person in the list of the parish or township in which his name originally appeared; and every such book shall be printed and arranged in such manner and form that the list of votes of and for each and every separate parish or township contained therein may be conveniently and completely cut out or detached from all the other lists of voters contained in the same book, so that all the lists for every or any polling place, or the list of every or any single parish or township, may be ready for the purposes of this act, or for sale; and the said clerk of the peace shall sign and deliver the peace to sign and said book or books on or before the last day of deliver a copy to November in the then current year to the sheriff of the county, to be by him and his successors in the office of sheriff safely kept, for the purposes hereinafter and in the said recited act mentioned.

Clerk of the

the sheriff.