forfeit 500l. per day for so doing; and that if any person having a contract of this nature admits a member of the house to share in it, he shall forfeit 500l. to the prosecutor. Again, by 3 Geo. IV. c. 55, no police justice of the metropolis can sit in parliament. The judges of the superior courts of common law are disqualified. The three vice-chancellors also are excluded, though the master of the rolls is not. The clergy are also excluded. [CLERGY.] Sheriffs of counties, and mayors and bailiffs of boroughs, as being themselves returning-officers in parliamentary elections, are ineligible for the several districts respectively for which it is their duty to make returns. The repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts in 1828, and the passing of the Catholic Emancipation Act in 1829, have worked one very important alteration in the constitution of the Commons' House, by removing nearly altogether the widely operating religious disqualifications which previously existed. The engagement " on the true faith of a Christian," to abstain from all designs hostile to the church as by law established, which the latter act has substituted for the oath and declaration formerly required, excludes no man professing Christianity in however general terms, and seems indeed to have no effective operation but against individuals of the Jewish race and creed, to whose admission this bar is still opposed. Such are the chief personal disqualifications, at common law and by statute, from sitting in the Commons' House of Parliament; presenting, as already remarked, a general analogy to those existing against the voter. We now come to the other branch of the subject, the qualifications by property and residence; and here, in the case of the English and Irish representation at least, the analogy no longer holds good. The qualification for an English, Welsh, or Irish member, was not altered by the Reform Acts, and was-for a county member a clear estate of freehold or copyhold of 600l. a year, and for a city or borough member, 300l. To represent a university no property qualification is requisite. In 1838 an act was As passed (2 Vict. c. 48), which amends the laws relating to the qualifications of members to serve in parliament: a knight of the shire must be entitled, for his own use and benefit, to real or personal property, or both together, to the amount of 600l.; and to be a citizen or burgess, only one-half the qualification is required. The only personal exceptions from this condition are in favour of the eldest sons of peers, of bishops having seats in the House of Lords, and of persons legally qualified to be county members. The qualifying property may be situated in any part of England, Wales, Ireland, or Berwick-upon-Tweed. regards the Scottish part of the representation, it is worthy of especial remark, that the property qualifications enacted for England within a very few years after the union with Scotland, have never been extended to the latter portion of the kingdom; and that consequently the conditions of suffrage and of eligibility have remained there, according to the original constitution of the representative system in both countries, one and the same, excepting only the antiently essential condition of residence, which has long been done away throughout the United Kingdom without any reservation or limitation whatever; and excepting also that the Scottish Reform Act of 1832 has rendered unnecessary for county members the qualification of an elector formerly required. Issuing of Writs for a General Election; Election Proceedings and Returns. An essential and very important part of the representative machinery is that which regards the due transmission from the central to the local authority of the summons to elect, the superintendence of the election proceedings, and the due return from the local to the central authority of the names of the individuals chosen. When the lord chancellor, the highest officer of state, has received the written command of the king in council for the summoning of a new parliament, he thereupon sends his warrant or order to the highest ministerial officer acting under him, the clerk of the crown in chancery, to prepare and issue the writs, or written authorities for that purpose, to the several sheriffs, whether of counties at large or of counties corporate. In the early periods of our history, when the shire-motes, or county courts, were held regularly once a month, and the borough courts once a week or once a fortnight, there was no need to incur the trouble and inconvenience of a special meeting of the members of those courts, that is, of the freeholders in the former case and the burgesses in the latter, to elect the parliamentary representatives; and accordingly the sheriff was simply required to cause the election of the county members at the next county court, held in the regular course, or at an adjourned meeting of that court, in case such adjournment were necessary in order to allow time for giving due notice of the clection. It was not until the importance of the county courts declined, that a different arrangement became necessary; nor was it until the 25 George III. that it was enacted that the sheriff, on receipt of the writ, should call a special county court for the purpose of the election. The writ, thus addressed under the great seal to the sheriff of a county at large, requires him not only to cause the election of the county representatives, but also of those of each city and borough within his jurisdiction. And accordingly, on receiving this command, he issues a precept under his own seal to the head of each municipality enjoying the elective franchise, which precept is to be returned to him within a limited time, together with the name of the person or persons chosen ;* in like manner as he himself is bound to return, before a certain day previous to that on which the parliament is summoned to assemble, to the clerk of the crown, from whom he received it, the writ, with the names of the persons chosen, whether as county or as borough members. Such, in brief, as regards the returning-officers and responsible conductors of elections, has been the system from the commencement of the general representation. In the universities, the vice-chancellor, as returning-officer, receives and returns the sheriff's precept of election. In fourteen of the forty-three new and populous parliamentary boroughs created by the Reform Act for England and Wales, which had already a municipal or other chief civil officer or officers in whom this function could be appropriately vested, it is so intrusted by the Act. As regards the others, it is provided, that the sheriff of the respective counties shall, in the month of March in each year, by writing under his hand, to be delivered to the clerk of the peace for that county within a week from its date, and be by him filed with the records of his office, appoint for each of such boroughs a fit person resident therein to be the returning-officer until the nomination to be made in the March following. In case of such person's death or incapacity from sickness or any other sufficient impediment, the sheriff, on notice thereof, is forthwith to appoint in his stead a fit person, resident as aforesaid, to be the returning-officer for the remainder of the year. No person so nominated as returning-officer shall, after the expiration of his office, be compellable thereafter to serve again in the same office. Neither shall any person in holy orders, nor any churchwarden or overseer of the poor, be so appointed; nor shall any person so nominated be appointed a churchwarden or overseer during the time he shall be such returning-officer. Any person qualified to serve in parliament is exempted from such nomination as a returningofficer, if within one week after receiving notice of such appointment he make oath of his qualification before any justice, and forthwith notify the same to the sheriff. In accordance, however, with all previous usage, it is provided that "in case his Majesty shall be pleased to grant his royal charter of incorporation to any of the said boroughs named in the said schedules (C) and (D), which are not now incorporated, and shall by such charter give power to elect a mayor or other chief municipal officer for any such borough, then and in every such case such mayor or other chief municipal officer for the time being shall be the only returning-officer for such borough; and the provisions herein before contained with regard to the nomination and appoint The division of both counties and boroughs into convenient polling-districts, -the shortening of the time of polling in contested elections, from the old period of fifteen days to two days in England, Wales, and Scotland, and to five in Ireland,-the restriction of inquiry at the poll into the elector's right to the ascertaining the identity of name and qualification with those contained in the register of voters (thus abolishing the old tediously litigius practice of election scrutinies),-and the limitation of the necessary expense of election proceedings, borne by the candidates or their proposers-are among the more important of the recent improvements. For details, as we have already done in the case of the new system of registration, we must refer to the several Reform Acts of 1832. ment of a returning-officer for such | in the present day, it is most interesting borough shall thenceforth cease and de- to consider,-the reaction of an enlarged termine." and enlightened public opinion on the legal constitution of the House. In an historical view it is far less important to examine the merits of the late measures of representative amelioration in detail, than to mark the maturity of a new political element which they indicate, and the new line of constitutional progression which they have begun. No matter that the Reform Acts, as they are called, have made but a compromise with the exceeding corruptions and anomalies of the old system, and have left some of its most important usurpations untouched; no matter that the Commons' House, which in the days of its pristine vigour was democratic in the fullest sense of the term, is still, though somewhat popu larized by the recent changes, a highly aristocratic body; we do not the less find in these changes a successful effort of the national intelligence and will, not so much to replace the legislative representation on the basis on which it stood at the close of the fourteenth century, and which, from the causes we have previously stated, was fixed without any scientific or symmetrical proportioning even of the number of representatives to that of constituents, but to mould it into some shape more accordant with the present advanced state of general information in the great body of the people; to render it, in short, a popular representation in fact as well as in name. Towards this point, how much soever they have fallen short of it, the late alterations by parliamentary enactment distinctly tend. The spirit that predominates in them plainly shows from what quarter the impulse came to which they owe their being; and it is a reasonable, at least, if not a necessary inference, that nothing short of a retrogression of the public intelligence can prevent the impulse from being repeated until the great object we have stated shall be com Having thus given, we believe, a tolerably just though succinct view of the history and present state of the representative system of the British empire, so far as it can be distinctly shown without continual reference to the other branches of the legislature, we refer for an account of the organization and operations of the Commons, "in parliament assembled," to the article PARLIAMENT, IMPE RIAL. We have seen how the popular representation arose, first as a convenient, then as a necessary appendage to the feudal parliament of the Anglo-Normans. We have seen how, as early at least as the parliamentary settlement of the crown upon the house of Lancaster, that popular representation, under the title of the House of Commons, had become an effective, integral, independent, and solemnly recognised branch of the legislature. We have traced, from that period downwards, the twofold operation of the crown in undermining this equal and sometimes preponderating independence of the Com-pletely attained. mons' House, and of that House itself in contracting the limits and abridging the rights of the constituent bodies, until the original constitution of the representative body itself was absolutely subverted. And last of all we have seen that which, COMMONS, IRISH HOUSE OF. [PARLIAMENT OF IRELAND.] COMPANIES, or GUILDS. [COL COMPANIES, JOINT-STOCK. [JOINT-STOCK COMPANY.] COMPANY. [CORPORATION; PARTNERSHIP.] COMPURGATOR. A practice once prevailed, derived from the common law, of permitting persons accused of certain crimes to clear themselves by purgation. In these cases the accused party formally swore to his innocence, and, in corroboration of his oath, twelve other persons, who knew him, swore that they believed in their consciences that he stated the truth. These twelve persons were called compurgators. (Ducange, ad vocem "Juramentum.") This proceeding appears to have existed among the Saxons, and, in process of time, it came into use in England in civil cases of simple contract debts. The ceremony of canonical purgation of clerks-convict, which was nothing more than the formal oath of the party accused, and the oaths of his twelve compurgators, continued in England until it was abolished by the stat. 18 Eliz. c. 7. [BENEFIT OF CLERGY, p. 360.] CONCEALMENT OF BIRTH. [IN FANTICIDE.] CONCLAVE. [CARDINAL; CATHOLIC CHURCH.] CONCORDAT is the name given to a formal agreement between the see of Rome and any foreign government, by which the ecclesiastical discipline of the Roman Catholic clergy and the management of the churches and benefices within the territory of that government are regulated. It is, in fact, a diplomatic negotiation and treaty concerning ecclesiastical affairs, which includes also temporalities belonging to the church. The frequent disputes between the popes and the various states of Europe touching the right of appointing to vacant sees and benefices, and also about the claims of the see of Rome to part, or in some cases the whole, of the revenues of vacant sees and livings, and of the first-fruits and tenths of those which it had filled, as well as the immunities claimed in various times and countries by the clergy and supported by Rome, such as exemption from taxation, and from the jurisdiction of the secular courts, the right of asylum for criminals in the churches, and other similar claims; --all these have given occasion to concordats between the popes and particular states, in order to draw a line between the secular and ecclesiastical jurisdictions, and thus put an end to controversy and scandal. By the concordat of 1516 between Leo X. and Francis I. the king abolished the right exercised by the chapters of electing the respective bishops, a right assured to them by St. Louis and by the states of the kingdom under Charles VII. in 1438. The parliament refused for two years to register this concordat, as contrary to the spirit of the general councils and the liberties of the Gallican church; it registered it at last March 19th, 1518, 'by express and repeated commands of the king.' (Gregoire, Essai Historique sur les Libertés de l'Eglise Gallicane.) Concordats have become most frequent since the middle of the eighteenth century, an epoch from which the European governments have made themselves more independent of the ecclesiastical power, and the popes have been for the most part men of an enlightened and conciliatory spirit. Benedict XIV., by a concordat with the King of Sardinia, in 1741, gave up to the king the right of nomination to benefices in various provinces of the Sardinian kingdom, which the see of Rome had claimed till then, as well as the temporalities of the same during a vacancy. A concordat was made between the pope and Charles, King of Naples, about the same time, by which the property of the clergy became subject to taxation, and the episcopal jurisdiction_in__temporal matters was greatly limited. By another concordat between Clement XIV. and the King of Sardinia, the right of asylum to criminals in the churches was much restricted, and full power was given to the respective bishops to expel and give up to the secular power those who were guilty of heinous offences. But the most celebrated concordat is that agreed upon between Cardinal Consalvi, in the name of Pius VII, and the first consul Bonaparte, in July, 1801. By it the head of the state had the nomination to the vacant sees, but the pope was to confer canonical institution, and the bishops had the appointment to the parishes in their respective dioceses, subject however to the approbation of the government. The clergy became subject in temporal matters out some formal declaration of his intento the civil power, just like laymen. All tion. To cohabit with a free woman immunities, ecclesiastical courts, and juris- otherwise than in a matrimonial condictions, were abolished in France, and nection or that of concubinage, was a even the regulations of the public worship legal offence (stuprum). It appears that and religious ceremonies, and the pastoral free-born women must have been someaddresses of the clergy, were placed | times had as concubines; for the Emperor under the control of the secular authori- Aurelian forbade such unions. By a conties. Most of these provisions remain in stitution of Constantine a man could not force in France to the present day. Re- keep a concubine while he was married. gulations nearly similar exist in Aus- In Roman inscriptions we find instances tria and other German states. Other of a woman raising a monument to her deconcordats have been made with some of ceased companion, and calling herself his the Italian states. By that of 1818 with concubina. No female could be had as a Naples the king proposes the bishops, sub-concubine if she was under twelve years ject to the pope's scrutiny, and the pope consecrates them; the bishops have the right of censorship over the press, and the ecclesiastical courts are re-established for matters of discipline and for ecclesiastical causes as defined by the council of Trent. Appeals to Rome are allowed. It appears from the above facts, that the ecclesiastical authority and influence in Roman Catholic countries vary considerably according to the concordats, if there be any, entered into with Rome, or according to the civil regulations adopted and enforced by the respective governments towards the clergy as towards laymen. CONCUBINAGE is the cohabitation of a man with a woman, to whom he is not united by marriage. Augustus, with the view of preventing celibacy and encouraging marriage, A.D. 9, caused the law called Lex Julia and Papia Poppæa to be passed, which may be considered as much an ordinance of moral police as a measure in favour of population. This law contained several conditions advantageous for those who had the greatest number of children. It also gave to concubinage (concubinatus) a legal character. The union of concubinage seems to have been commonly formed between a man and his liberated female slave. It appears that a man might have either another person's freedwoman or his own freed woman as a concubine, or even a woman who was born free (ingenua); but they were chiefly taken from the class of persons of mean birth, or those who had been prostitutes. A man could not have a woman of honest life and conversation, a free-born woman, as a concubine, with of age. Several instances are recorded of Roman emperors who, after the death of their wives, took a concubine instead of contracting a legal marriage; Vespasian, Antoninus Pius, and the philosopher Marcus Aurelius. The object of this union was, that the father might not beget children who would have the same rights as his children by his wife; for as concubinatus was not marriage, the children of such a union were not lawful children. In Germany, among the reigning families, a left-handed marriage (Trauung an die linke hand or morganatische ehe) still sometimes occurs. This kind of marriage resembles the Roman concubinage, as well in its conditions as its consequences. (Dig. 25, tit. 5.) OF THE CONFEDERATION RHINE. The Confederation of the Rhine was established by an act, signed at Paris on the 12th of July, 1806, by the Kings of Bavaria and Wirtemberg, the Elector of Mainz, the Elector of Baden, the Duke of Cleves and Berg (Murat), the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, the Princes of Nassau-Usingen, Nassau-Weilburg, Hohenzollern-Hechingen, Hohenzollern-Siegmaringen, Salm-Salm, SalmKyrburg; the Duke of Aremberg; the Princes of Isenburg, Birstein, Lichtenstein, and the Count of Leyen. By this act the Elector of Mainz received the title of the Prince Primate; the Elector of Baden, the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, and the Duke of Berg, received the titles of grand dukes, with royal rights and privileges; the Prince of Nassau-Usingen received the ducal, and the Count of Leyen the princely diguity. The Frenck |