can be proceeded with, after petition, or after first reading, if the bill be brought from the Lords. The same is required before any one can appear against a bill.

The petition must be presented within fourteen days after the first Friday in every session of Parliament (H. C. 102) by a member who is supposed to take charge of the bill.

The following is the usual form of a petition for a railway bill.

"To the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in Parliament assembled."

"The humble petition of the several persons whose names are hereunto subscribed, being subscribers to the undertaking hereafter mentioned.

"Sheweth that the making of a railway from A. to B. will be of great public advantage, by opening additional, certain, and expeditious means of communication between the said places, and also by facilitating communications between more distant towns and places; and that the several persons hereinafter named are willing at their own expense to carry such undertaking into execution. But that the purpose

aforesaid cannot be effected without the authority of Parliament.

"Your petitioners therefore humbly pray your Honourable

House that leave may be given to bring in a bill for effecting the purposes aforesaid in such manner and under such regulations and restrictions as to your Honourable House shall seem meet and expedient."

(A printed copy of the bill is hereunto annexed). Or the prayer may be as follows:

"Your petitioners have caused a bill to be prepared for

effecting the purposes aforesaid; and they humbly pray they may be allowed to proceed with the said bill."

This petition must be written on parchment or paper, and not printed and some of the petitioners must sign their names, the signature of the agent not being sufficient. The petitions of corporations aggregate must be under their common seal.

Care should be taken in drawing the petition, that it may set forth the principal objects sought by the proposed bill; but it should include none beyond what were stated in the notices; and the bill, again, will not be permitted to contain any object not specified in the petition for such bill or in the notices, and various instances have occurred of adverse decisions by the sub-committees on petitions, in consequence of a variance of this nature, upon objection being raised thereto. In the last session (1845) several sub-committees on petitions for private bills decided that the powers specified in the various notices in the gazette, &c., as intended to be applied for, must correspond with those actually sought by the bill subsequently to be introduced. In the case, for instance, of the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway (Gloucester, &c., Extensions), opponents

raised an objection to the notices that had been published, on the ground that they contained no intimation of an intention by the promoters to apply for (as was sought to be obtained by the bill) power to sell or lease the railway in question to the Midland Railway Company. The decision of the sub-committee (No. 2) upon this occasion was that the Standing Orders had not been complied with; and like decisions were come to in the several cases of the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway (Worcester Branch and Cheltenham Extension); the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway (Worcester Deviation); and the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway (Wolverhampton Line), &c.

Again, in the instance of the Kingston and Waterford Railway in the same session:-Notices were duly and correctly given for a line to be constructed from Kingstown to Waterford. The bill, however, proving to be merely for constructing a railway from Kingstown to Bray, an adverse decision was pronounced by the sub-committee on a like ground (17th April, 1845). In the case of the Direct Northern, a similar course was pursued on account of the powers specified in the notices not corresponding with those actually applied for in the bill. Thus, the notices were of a line from King's Cross, London, to York, while the bill only sought powers for forming one from Lincoln to York. The same decision was pronounced in the various cases of the Glasgow

Harbour Union Railway, the Goole and Doncaster Railway and others, in which the bills applied merely for a portion of the line, for the whole of which it was stated in the notices it was the intention of the promoters to seek parliamentary sanction. [See Note.]

The notices in the gazette and in the newspapers, too, must be identical; and any variation will be a valid ground of objection before the sub-committee on petitions.

Where several matters are comprised in one petition, the order may be to bring in a bill or bills upon that petition, or several bills may be ordered to be brought in upon separate parts thereof. Where the several matters comprised in the petition require such a course of proceeding, the petition may be referred to a committee as to part, and a bill may be ordered to be introduced as to the remainder. (Bramwell on Bills, 41.) A subsequent petition must be presented where additional provisions are required to be made in any bill, the proposed extra clauses being attached.

Annexed to the petition for the bill must be a declaration in writing, signed by the agent, or some one of such agents, stating to which of the three classes of bills such bill in his judgment belongs; and if the proposed bill shall give power to effect any of the objects enumerated (in Standing Order 102 a.), one of which is "Power to make, vary, extend or enlarge any Railway;"

the said declaration shall state which of such powers are given by the bill, and shall indicate in which clauses of the bill (referring to them by their numbers) such powers are given, and shall further state that the bill does not give power to effect any of the other objects than those set forth in the declaration. (H. C. 102 a.)

A copy of this declaration, annexed to the petition, must be deposited at the office of the Board of Trade. (H. C. 102.)

Previous to the Presentation.

The following proceedings are required by the Standing Orders to be adopted before the petition is presented.

1. All plans, sections, books of reference, lists of owners and occupiers, estimates, copies of subscription contracts, and declarations required by the Standing Orders of the House must be lodged in the Private Bill Office, and the receipt thereof must be acknowledged upon the said documents, and upon the petition before it can be presented to the House. (H. C. 127.)

2. Previous to the presentation of the petition, also, a sum equal to one-tenth part of the amount subscribed must be deposited with the Court of Chancery in England or Ireland, or the Court of Exchequer in Scotland. (H. C. 39 a.)

The above Order is not, however, to apply to any Railway Bills that were before Parliament