periodically a certain number of "aldermen," and by the burgesses a certain number of "councillors" (m), all of whom together shall constitute "the council" of the borough (n), and shall be respectively chosen from among persons enrolled and entitled to be enrolled as burgesses (o), and otherwise qualified as in the Act described (p). The election of councillors is conducted in the same manner as under the Ballot Act, 1872 (35 & 36 Vict. c. 33), and is subject to like provisions with regard to corrupt and illegal practices, but with certain modifications, as those to which parliamentary elections are subject. In the case of the larger boroughs, divided into wards, the election of the councillors for the different wards is made by the burgesses of the respective wards (q). The aldermen are to be elected by the council (); their term of office is for six years. They are one-third of the number of councillors, and half of them retire every three years. The council must meet once a quarter, and oftener if due notice be given, for the transaction of the general business of the borough (s). A majority of the members present (if those present amount to one third of the whole) may decide every question. The mayor, or the member presiding in his absence, has a casting vote (†). At any meeting, the council may make by-laws, for the good rule and government of the borough, and for the prevention and suppression of nuisances; and offences against such by-laws may be

(m) Act of 1882, s. 10. (n) Ibid.

(0) Sect. 11. The Parliamentary Registration Acts (as to which vide sup. vol. 11. pp. 391-394), apply also mutatis mutandis, to the making out and revision of the burgess list (see 41 & 42 Vict. (1878), c. 26, ss. 15, 18; Act of 1882, ss. 44, 45; and 54 & 55 Vict. (1891), c. 68, ss. 2, 3).

(p) Act of 1882, ss. 11, 12. Νο person may be a councillor or

alderman if he holds any place of profit under the council, or is a clergyman, or has a direct or indirect interest in any contract or employment with or under the council.

(7) Act of 1882, s. 30; R. v. Parkinson (1867), L. R. 3 Q. B. 11.

(r) Act of 1882, ss. 14, 15. (8) Ibid. s. 22, and 2nd schedule to Act.

(1) Ibid.

punished by fines not exceeding five pounds (u). Such by-laws under the Municipal Corporations Act may be disallowed by Order in Council. By-laws passed by a council under the Public Health Acts are subject to the approval of the Local Government Board. And any bylaw may be invalidated as unreasonable or contrary to law by a court of justice. It is also required that the burgesses shall annually elect (.), from among those qualified to be councillors, two auditors and two assessors, the former to audit the accounts of the borough, the latter to assist in revising the burgess list; and there is also to be a third auditor, appointed by the mayor, and called the mayor's auditor (y). The council also appoint a town clerk, and a treasurer (neither of whom may be a member of the council), and such other officers as have been usual or as are necessary, with power also to fix their salaries (z). If the borough has a separate court of quarter sessions, the council must appoint a clerk of the peace (a), and also a coroner (b), except in quarter sessions boroughs having a population of less than 10,000 in 1881, when the power of appointment of coroner is transferred to the county council (c).

If a borough desires to have a separate court of quarter sessions, the Municipal Corporations Act, 1882, provides, that the council of any such borough may petition the Crown for that purpose (d); and if the application be granted, the Crown will appoint a barrister at law to be recorder of the borough, and he will not only be sole judge of such court of quarter sessions, but also of the borough court of record for civil actions, if there be any, provided that such court of record be not regulated by

(u) Act of 1882, s. 23. (x) Ibid. s. 25,

(y) Ibid. ss. 25, 29, 62.

(z) Ibid. ss. 17, 18, 19. (a) Ibid. s. 164.

(b) Ibid. s. 171.

(c) Local Government Act, 1888, s. 38. As to county boroughs not being quarter sessions boroughs, see the same Act, s. 34.

(d) Act of 1882, s. 162.

any Act of Parliament (e). If the council desire it, a stipeudiary magistrate or magistrates may also be appointed for the borough (f). Moreover, to boroughs having a separate court of quarter sessions, the Crown is empowered to grant a commission of the peace (g), and to nominate such persons to be justices within the borough as it shall think proper (h); and among such justices, the mayor (during his mayoralty), and also the recorder, are included by virtue of their offices (). Such a borough, if previously exempt from the jurisdiction of the county justices by reason of a non-intromittant clause in its charter (k), will continue to be so exempt. But otherwise the county justices have concurrent jurisdiction (); and, of course, where the borough has no separate quarter sessions, the county justices have jurisdiction within the borough.

Under the Act of 1882, the old theory that a corporation may not acquire land except by license in mortmain from the Crown is so far preserved, that a municipal corporation may not purchase and hold more than five acres of land without a license or an Act of Parliament.

It is provided also, that the council shall not, except with the approval, formerly of the Lords of the Treasury, but now of the Local Government Board (m), sell or mortgage the lands or public stock of the borough, or demise such lands for more than a certain term (n). The rents, profits, and interest of all corporate property are to be paid to the treasurer, and carried to the account

of the borough fund (0), which fund, after discharging debts (p), is to be applied in or towards the payment of salaries, the expenses connected with the corporate elections, prosecutions, constabulary, prison accommodation, and other public purposes (q), the surplus (if any) being expended for the public benefit of the inhabitants (~), and the deficiency (if any) being made up by a rate (s). The borough accounts are to be, at all times, open to inspection, and also regularly audited by the borough auditors, and printed for the use of the ratepayers (t), and submitted to the Secretary of State, and by him laid before Parliament (u).

The Municipal Corporations Act, 1835, thus superseded by the Consolidation Act of 1882, distinguished between the rights newly conferred, and the antecedent rights of the corporators, both with regard to the corporate property, and with regard also to the parliamentary franchise. And, First, as to the corporate property, it provided, that every inhabitant, and every person admitted a freeman or burgess, and the wife, widow, son, or daughter of any freeman or burgess, and every person married to the daughter or widow of a freeman or burgess, and every apprentice, should respectively enjoy the same share and benefit of the lands and public stock of the borough, as he or she might have enjoyed in case the Act had not been passed, subject only to this limitation, namely, that the total amount to be divided among such persons should not exceed the surplus which remained after payment of the expenses charged by the Act upon the borough fund (). And, Second, as to the parliamentary franchise, the Act

(0) Act of 1882, s. 139.

(p) Ibid. ss. 112, 113.

(q) Ibid. s. 140, and 5th schedule to Act.

(r) Ibid. s. 115.

(*) Ibid. s. 144.

(t) Ibid. ss. 26, 27. The only portion of borough accounts audited by the Local Government Board are the education accounts under the Education Act of 1902.

(u) Ibid. s. 28.

(x) Act of 1835, s. 2.

provided, that every person who would or might, as a burgess or freeman, have had the right of voting in the election of members of parliament if the Act had not passed, should continue to be entitled to that right (y). For the purposes of such reserved rights, the Act required the town clerk of every borough to make out a list, to be called the freemen's roll, of all persons admitted burgesses or freemen (2), as distinguished from the burgesses newly created by the Act, and who were to be entered on another roll, to be called the burgess roll. And the Municipal Corporations Act, 1882, has enacted that the freemen's roll shall still be kept (a); and that the property rights of such freemen (b), and also their parliamentary franchises (c), shall be preserved.

Prior to the passing of the Municipal Corporations Act, 1835, the title of burgess (or the freedom of the city, as it was called), was generally acquired by birth, marriage, servitude, or by gift or purchase. But the Act provided, that no person should in future be made a burgess or freeman by gift or purchase (d); and although by the Honorary Freedom of Boroughs Act, 1885 (48 & 49 Vict. c. 29), the council may confer the freedom of the borough upon distinguished persons, yet this distinction is not to entitle such freemen to vote at any parliamentary or other election for the borough, or to participate in the corporate property of the borough. The Act of 1835 also abolished the exemptions that had theretofore been ordinarily claimed by burgesses, inhabitants, or the like, from such tolls or dues as were levied to the use of the body corporate (e). And whereas, before the Act, in divers boroughs, a custom had prevailed, and by-laws had been made, to the effect that no person not being free of the borough, or of certain

(y) Act of 1835, s. 4; 7 Will. 4 & 1 Vict. (1837) c. 78, s. 27.

(z) Act of 1835, s. 5.

(a) Act of 1882, s. 203. (b) Ibid. ss. 205-208.

(c) Ibid. s. 209.

(d) Act of 1835, s. 3.

(e) Ibid. s. 2; 6 & 7 Will. 4 (1836), c. 104, s. 9.