31 & 32 VICT. c. 46.

Amendment of the Representation of the People Act, 1867.

XVII. Whereas by the first enactment contained in the thirtieth section of the Representation of the People Act, 1867, it is enacted, that" the "overseers of every parish or township shall make out or cause to be "made out a list of all persons on whom a right to vote for a county in 66 respect of the occupation of premises is conferred by this Act, in the 66 same manner and subject to the same regulations, as nearly as circum66 stances admit, in and subject to which the overseers of parishes and "townships in Boroughs are required by the registration Acts to make "out or cause to be made out a list of all persons entitled to vote for a "member or members for a borough in respect of the occupation of "premises of a clear yearly value of not less than ten pounds :" And whereas by the fifty-ninth section of the same Act it is further provided that the said Representation of the People Act, 1867, so far as is consistent with the tenor thereof, shall be construed as one with the Registration Acts: And whereas doubts are entertained, notwithstanding the said provisions, whether the fifteenth section of the principal Act, relating to the claims of persons omitted from borough lists of voters, or desirous of being registered in respect of a different qualification from that appearing in such lists, does or does not apply with the necessary variations to the rectification of the lists of county voters to be made in pursuance of the said enactment: It is hereby declared, that the said fifteenth section of the principal Act shall apply to the list of persons on whom a right to vote for a county in respect of the occupation of premises is conferred by the Representation of the People Act, 1867, in the same manner as if the list of voters in the said fifteenth section referred to were the list of voters made in pursuance of the enactment contained in the thirtieth section of the Representation of the People Act instead of the list of voters for a city or borough as specified in the said fifteenth section.

XVIII. Where a municipal borough forms part of a parliamentary borough the town clerk of such municipal borough shall be deemed to be the town clerk within the meaning of the thirty-fourth section of the Representation of the People Act, 1867, and the Acts relating to registration.

The local authority within the meaning of the same section, in boroughs where the town council is not the local authority, shall be the Justices of the Peace of the Petty Sessional Division in which such borough is situate, or if such borough be situate in or comprise more than one Petty Sessional Division then the Justices in general or quarter sessions having Jurisdiction over such Borough or the greater part thereof in area. The power of dividing their county into polling districts, and assigning to each district a polling place, vested in the Justices of the Peace by the said thirty-fourth section of the Representation of the People Act, 1867, may be exercised by such Justices from time to time and as often as they think fit; and the said power of dividing a county into polling districts shall be deemed to include the power of altering any polling district or polling districts.

XIX. In the lists and register of voters for a county the names of the persons in any parish or township ou whom a right to vote for a county in respect of the occupation of premises in such parish or township is conferred by the Representation of the People Act, 1867, shall appear in a separate list after the list of voters in such parish or township otherwise qualified, and such separate list shall be deemed to be part of the lists of county voters of such parish or township, and shall be annually made anew by the overseers of such parish or township, subject to this proviso, that the revising barrister shall erase from the separate list of such occupiers as aforesaid all persons who appear to him from the accom panying lists to be entitled to vote in the same polling district in respect of some other qualification to which no objection is made, except in cases where any person whose name is about to be erased object to the erasure, in which case such person shall be deemed to have given due notice of his claim to have his name inserted in the list of occupiers, and shall be dealt with accordingly.

XX. Notwithstanding anything contained in the thirtieth section of the Representation of the People Act, 1867, and the thirty-eighth section of the principal Act therein referred to, the names of the persons in any parish or township on whom a right to vote for a member or members to serve for any borough in respect of the occupation of lodgings is conferred by the Representation of the People Act, 1867, shall, in lists and registers of voters for such boroughs, appear in a separate list.

XXI. Section fifty seven of the Representation of the People Act, 1867, with respect to the county palatine of Lancaster, and the issue, direction, and transmission of writs for the election of members to serve in Parliament for any division of the said county or for any borough situate therein, shall be construed to extend to and include the county palatine of Durham.

XXII. Where any parish in a county, city or borough forms part of more than one polling district, the part of such parish situate in each polling district shall be deemed to be a separate parish for the purposes of the revision of voters and the lists and register of voters, and may be designated by some distinguishing addition in the list of voters for such part of a parish.

XXIII. Whereas it is expedient to provide a summary remedy for the recovery by town clerks and returning officers of sums of money due to them in respect of expenses incurred in pursuance of the Registration Acts, be it enacted, that if the overseers of any parish or township refuse or neglect to pay to the town clerk or returning officer of any borough, out of the first monies to be collected for the relief of the poor, any contribution or sum required to be paid to him by the fifty-fifth section of the principal Act, or any Act amending the same, or any part of such contribution or sum, it shall be lawful for any Justice of the peace for the county or place within which such parish or township is wholly or in part situate, upon information and complaint in writing, and after seven days notice in writing to be served upon such overseers or one of them, by warrant under his hand to levy such contribution or sum by distress and sale of the goods of the offender or offenders, together with

all costs occasioned by the making of such complaint, service of such summons and the obtaining and executing such warrant.

XXIV. The third section of the said Act of the session of the fifth and sixth years of King William the Fourth, chapter 36, shall be repealed, and instead thereof be it enacted, "that the polling booths at each "polling place shall be so divided and arranged in compartments by the "Sheriff or other returning officer that not more than five hundred "electors shall be alloted to poll in each compartment."

XXV. Where a borough is situated partly in one circuit and partly in another, the Judge of the circuit in which the greater part in extent of such borough is situate shall appoint the revising barrister for such borough.

XXVI. If, in pursuance of any Act passed during the last or present session of parliament any alteration is made affecting the divisions of any county the clerk of the peace of such county or the revising barrister shall amend any copies of registers, lists, claims, or objections submitted to him in such manner as to make the same conformable to the alterations so made by Act of parliament.

If the Justices of the peace in any county have by any order of session made before such Act was passed divided such county into polling districts, and assigned to each district a polling place, and named the polling places at which the revising barristers are to hold their courts, such order shall be as valid to all intents and purposes as if it had been made after the passing of such Act.

XXVII. From and after the passing of this Act a returning officer shall be annually appointed for the borough of Thirsk in the manner provided by the eleventh section of the Act of the second year of the reign of his late Majesty King William the Fourth, chapter forty-five, in the case of the boroughs mentioned in schedules C. and D. annexed to the said Act, for which no persons are mentioned in such schedules as returning officers and the person so appointed shall perform all the duties and be entitled to the remuneration which a returning officer is, by the Registration Acts, required to perform and is entitled to in boroughs where there is no town clerk.

XXVIII. The overseers of every parish or township shall produce to the barrister appointed to revise the lists of voters of any county, whilst holding his court for revising the lists relating to their parish or township, all rates made for the relief of the poor of their parish or township between the fifth day of January in the year then last past and the last day of July in the then present year; and any overseer wilfully refusing or neglecting to produce any such rates shall be deemed wilfully guilty of a breach of duty in the execution of the principal Act, and be punishable accordingly.

XXIX. The barrister appointed to revise the lists of voters of any county, whilst holding his court for revising the lists relating to a parish or township, may require any overseer or overseers of a past year, or other person having the custody of any poor rate of the then current or any past year, or any relieving officer, to attend before him at any such court and they shall attend accordingly and answer all such questions as

T

may be put to them by the barrister; and any overseer or relieving officer wilfully refusing or neglecting to comply with the requirements authorized to be made by the revising barrister in pursuance of this section shall be punishable in the same manner in which an overseer wilfully guilty of a breach of duty in the execution of the principal Act, is punishable under the principal Act.

XXX. The thirtieth section of the Act of the session of the second year of King William the Fourth, chapter forty-five, and the seventy-fifth section of the principal Act, shall apply to all occupiers of premises capable of conferring the franchise for a county under the Representation of the People Act, 1867.

THE REVENUE OFFICERS' DISABILITIES REMOVAL ACT, 1868.

(31 & 32 VICT. c. 73.)

An Act to relieve certain Officers employed in the collection and Management of Her Majesty's Revenues from any legal Disability to vote at the Election of Members to serve in Parliament.

31st July, 1868.

WHEREAS it is inexpedient that any person otherwise entitled to be registered as a voter should be incapacitated to vote at the election of a member or members to serve in Parliament by reason of his being employed in the collection or management of Her Majesty's Revenues:

Be it enacted by the Queen's most excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

I. The enactments contained in the Schedule to this Act are hereby sepealed.

SCHEDULE.

22 George III. c. 41.

43 George III. c. 25.

7 & 8 George IV. c. 53, sec. 9.

[28]Victoriæ, cap. 36.-June 2, 1865.]

An Act to amend the Law relating to the Registration of County Voters, and to the Powers and Duties of Revising Barristers in certain cases. The present Act is to be continued with, and be a part of, the Registration Act, 6 and 7 Vict. cap. 18, which is however amended as far as regards county voters; and the new Act is to be cited (§ 1) as the County Voters Registration Act, 1865. The new Act provides that on or before June 10, in every year (§ 2) the clerk of the peace is to cause to be delivered to the overseers of the poor, his precept according to a specified form, with notices, list and copies of the register of the county voters for the parish or township, and the overseers (§ 3), on or before June 20, are to publish, by affixing such lists and notices on church and chapel doors, public places, &c., such list to remain for at least two Sundays; but to be removed before July 20; August 20, instead of the 25th as in former Acts, is to be the last day (4) for giving notices of objections to overseers and to the person objected to; and Sept. 1 (§ 5) the last day for returning the lists with claims and objections to the clerk of the peace. The grounds of objec tion (§ 6) are to be specifically stated, and if the objection be grounded on more than one column of the registration list, each objection must be stated separately. No person objected to (§ 7) is to be required to give evidence before the revising barrister in support of his right otherwise than as such right is called in question by the objection*; each separate ground of objection (§ 8) to be treated separately by the revising barrister, and for every ground of objection which may have been groundlessly or frivolously stated, he may award cost against the objector to the amount of at least 2s. 6d., although the name may be expunged on some other ground. Notices of objection (§ 9) may be sent by post, pre-paid, as provided in § 100 of the previous Act. Persons whose names appear on the list of voters then in force (§ 10), but who have changed their residence, may make a declaration in a specified form, before a magistrate or any other authorized person, that he possessed the same qualification as when placed on the list, to be transmitted to the clerk of the peace on or before Sept. 14, who is to endorse the same with his initials and the date when received; such declarations to be open for perusal, without fee, at the clerk's office, between ten and four in the day, to be afterwards delivered to the revising barrister, who is to receive the same as evidence without further proof; persons falsely signing any such declarations (§ 11) to be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine or imprisonment for a term not exceeding a year; and the revising barrister is empowered to impound any such declaration. No court (§ 12) to be held by any revising barrister before Sept. 20. Every order for costs (§ 13) whether in revising the lists of county, city, or borough voters, in the case of an objection, to be made before proceedings to hear any other ground of objections; the sum ordered to be paid (§ 14) is not to exceed the sum of £.5 on any one vote. For the purpose of this Act (§ 17) the word "value" shall in the case of an occupying tenant mean amount of rental.

• See Form 5a, p. 240.

+ See Form 8a, p. 241.