through the medium of dealers or shop-| keepers by the non-agricultural part of the population; and even those who are employed in agriculture are, generally speaking, supplied with the products which they raise in the same way as those who have no connexion with the soil. There is no large class of persons who consume the products of their labour. In 1835 the value of eggs exported from Ireland to Great Britain was 68,6871.; and perhaps at the present time it may exceed 100,000l. At 4d. per dozen the num ber of eggs which this sum would purchase would be 72,000,000. From France and Belgium we imported 96,000,000 eggs in 1840; on which the duty of one penny per dozen produced 34,450l. Ninetenths of the foreign eggs are from France. The departments nearest to England, from the Pas de Calais to La Manche, are visited by the dealers, and their purchases often produce a scarcity in the country markets. At most of the ports of these departments, from Calais to Cherbourg, some vessels are employed in the egg-trade. The weight of 80,000,000 eggs will not be far short of 2500 tons. In the last three years the importations of foreign eggs were as follows: 1842 . . 89,548,747 The consumption of eggs at Paris is estimated at one hundred millions a-year. A hen of the Polish breed will lay 175 eggs in one year. Their weight will be between 13 and 14 lbs. ELECTION is when a man is left to his own free will to take or do one thing or another which he pleases (Termes de la Ley); and he who is to do the first act shall have the election. If A covenants to pay B a pound of pepper or saffron before Whitsuntide, it is at the election of A at all times before Whitsuntide which of them he will pay; but if he does not pay either before the time fixed, then it is at the election of B to sue for which he pleases. If a man give to another one of his horses, the donee may take which he chooses; but if the donation be that he will give one of his horses (in the future tense), then the election is in the donor. Courts of equity frequently apply the principle of election in cases where a party has inconsistent rights, and compel him to elect which he will enforce: as, if A by his will assumes to give an estate belonging to B to C, and gives other benefits to B, B cannot obtain the benefits given to him by the will unless he gives effect to the testator's disposition to C. It does not appear to be quite settled whether the party who elects to retain his own property in opposition to the instrument is bound to relinquish only so much of the property given to him as will be sufficient to compensate the disappointed parties, or whether his election will be followed by absolute forfeiture of the whole. The arguments on both sides are ably stated 1 Roper, Husband and Wife, 566 n.; 1 Swanst. Reports, 441; 2 Coke's Repts., 35 b., Thomas's note The principle of election is equally recognized in courts of law, though they are seldom called to deal upon it, except where the alternative is very distinct, or the party has already elected. Indeed this principle is of universal application, and prevails in the laws of all countries; it is applicable to all interests, whether of married women or of infants; to interests immediate, remote, or contingent; to copyhold as well as to freehold estates; to personalty as well as to realty; to deeds as well as to wills. Courts of equity also will compel a plaintiff suing at law as well as in equity, or in a foreign court as well as in the court in England, for the same matter, at the same time, to elect in which court he will proceed, and will restrain him from pursuing his rights in all others. There are some exceptions to this doctrine, as in the case of a mortgagee, who may proceed in equity for a foreclosure, and on his bond or covenant at law at the same time; but this arises from the difference of the remedy, and from the original agreement to give the concurrent remedies: and even in such a case a court of equity will restrain a mortgagee from enforcing his judgment at law upon the hond or covenant, if he is not prepared to deliver up the mortgaged property and the titledeeds belonging to it. On Election under a will in the Roman Law see Dig. xxxiii. tit. 5, De Optione | vel Electione Legata: and as to the French Law, see the Code Civil, art. 1189, &c., Des Obligations Alternatives. The term Election is borrowed from the Roman Law. The word optio often occurs in the Roman writers to express that a man may choose of two or more things or conditions, which he will take. The instances of election and option given in the title of the Digest, above referred to, are limited to options given by way of legacy, which is the subject treated of in that part of the Digest. Probably the legal meaning of election and option was limited to election under a testament. ELECTION-COMMITTEES. The course of elections of members of the House of Commons from the issuing of the writs to the returns made to the Clerk of the Crown is briefly sketched under the head HOUSE OF COMMONS. The Clerk of the Crown certifies the returns made to him to the House [CLERK OF THE CROWN.] The mode of adjudicating election-petitions is the subject of the present article. Till 1770, when the act well known as the Grenville act was passed, questions of controverted elections were decided by the whole House of Commons: and every such question was made a party contest. The Grenville act introduced a plan, which, with several modifications, continued till 1839, of appointing committees for the trial of election petitions by lot. Since 1839 a different system has been in operation, under which the choice of members of election-committees has not been left to chance, and their individual responsibility has been increased by diminishing the number of members. By the 7 & 8 Vict. c. 103 (passed last year, 1844) the number of members of an election-committee was reduced from seven to five, including the chairman. The 7 & 8 Vict. c. 103, now regulates the constitution and the proceedings of committees on controverted elections. At the commencement of every session, the Speaker appoints by warrant six members of the House to be a General Committee of Elections. The General Committee of Elections, when appointed, proceed to select, "in their discretion, six, eight, ten, or twelve members, whom they shall think duly qualified, to serve as chairmen of election-committees ;" and the members so selected for chairmen are formed into a separate panel, called the Chairmen's Panel. The members of the General Committee of Elections are excused from serving as members of election committees, and all members of the House of Commons above the age of sixty are also excused from this service. The House also allows other special grounds of exemption; the principal ministers for instance are excused from serving on election-committees, so long as they hold their offices, on account of their official duties. After the General Committee of Elections have appointed the Chairmen's Panel, they divide the remaining members of the House who are not exempted from service, into five panels; and members are chosen to serve on elections from these panels, in an order of succession determined by lot. All election-petitions are referred by the House to the General Committee of Elections; and this General Committee give notice, as provided by the act, of the days on which particular election-committees will be appointed, and of the panel from which members will be taken. "The General Committee shall meet at the time appointed for choosing the committee to try any election-petition, and shall choose from the panel then standing next in order of service, exclusive of the chairmen's panel, four members, not being then excused or disqualified for any of the causes aforesaid, and who shall not be specially disqualified for being appointed on the committee to try such petition for any of the following causes; (that is to say) by reason of having voted at the election, or by reason of being the party on whose behalf the seat is claimed, or related to the sitting member or party on whose behalf the seat is claimed by kindred or affinity in the first or second degree, according to the canon law." (§ 55.) At least four members of the general committee must agree in the appointment. On the same day on which the general committee choose the members of an election-committee, the chair examine all witnesses upon oath, which is to be administered by the clerk attending the committee. Election-committees are the only committees of the House of Commons in which evidence is taken upon oath. Any one giving false evidence is made liable to the penalties of wilful and corrupt perjury. men's panel choose from themselves a chairman for the committee, and communicate the name of the chairman selected to the general committee. The names of the chairman and members selected are thus communicated to the petitioners and sitting member or members, who may object to any of the members on any ground of disqualification specified in the 55th section of the act, but on no other ground. If any member is shown to be disqualified, the general committee select another; or if the chairman is disqualified, they send back his name to the chair-jections, not later than six in the aftermen's panel, who proceed to choose another chairman. The five members finally chosen are afterwards sworn at the table of the House "well and truly to try the matter of the petitions referred to them, and a true judgment to give according to the evidence." Such is a general sketch of the present mode of constitution of election-committees for other details the reader must refer to the act itself, or to Mr. May's Treatise on the Law of Parliament, pp. 341-373. It is a matter of practice for the General Committee of Elections to take the four members of an election committee equally from the two sides of the House. The second section of the act defines election-petitions, and specifies by whom they must be signed. Election-petitions are petitions complaining, 1. Of an undue election, or, 2. That no return has been made to a writ on or before the day on which the writ was returnable, or, 3. If the writ be issued during any session or prorogation of Parliament, that no return has been made within fifty-two days after the date of the writ, or, 4. That a return is not according to the requisition of the writ, or 5. Of special matters contained in the writ; and they must be signed by some person claiming therein to have had a right to vote at the election, or to have had a right to be returned, or alleging himself to have been a candidate at the election. All election-committees are empowered to send for persons, papers, and records, and to examine any one who may have signed the petition, unless it shall appear that he is an interested witness, and to Parties complaining of or defending a return are required to deliver in to the clerk of the General Committee of Elections lists of the voters intended to be objected to, with the several heads of ob noon of the sixth day next before the day appointed for choosing the committee to try the petition: and the electioncommittee cannot enter into evidence against any vote, or upon any head of objection, not included in the lists. The committee are required to decide "whether the petitioners or the sitting members or either of them be duly returned or elected, or whether the election be void, or whether a new writ ought to issue." Their decision on these points is final between the parties: and the House carries it into execution. ELECTOR. [COMMONS, HOUSE OF; MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS.] ELOPEMENT. [DOWER.] EMANCIPATION. CHILD.] [PARENT AND EMBARGO, the word used to denote the act by which any government lays an arrest on ships to prevent their leaving its ports. On the breaking out of war with any nation it has been usual for the government of each country to lay an embargo upon such of the enemy's ships as are within reach, with a view to their being declared good and lawful prize. During the progress of war, when any expedition is on foot against the enemy, and it is desirable to keep the circumstance from the knowledge of the party to be attacked, it is usual to lay an embargo upon all private vessels, as well those under the national flag as foreign vessels, until the object to be attained by secresy is accomplished. An embargo may also be laid by the government upon ships belonging to its subjects with a view to their employment for the service and defence of the nation. In all these cases it is clear that embargoes are detrimental to commerce; the only case in which they have an opposite character is when a foreign vessel of war or privateer frequents a neutral port, and is restrained from quitting the same until a certain time shall have elapsed after the departure from the port of any vessel of which it might otherwise make prize. EMBEZZLEMENT. [AGENT.] EMIGRATION may be defined to be a man's leaving his native country with all his property to settle permanently in another. Emigration is therefore necessarily implied in the word Colonization, and it is by the terms of our definition easily distinguished from a man's temporary absence from his native country, and from the kind of absence specially called Absenteeism. Though a man may be properly called an emigrant who leaves Great Britain or Ireland, for instance, and settles in France or Germany, or elsewhere in Europe, the term has in modern times come to have a more restricted and particular sense. By the term emigrant we generally understand one who leaves an old and thickly peopled country to settle in a country where there is abundance of land that has never been cultivated before, and where the native population is thinly scattered, and the foreign settlers are yet either few compared with the surface or none at all. The countries to which emigration is mainly directed at present are the British possessions in North America, the United States of North America, and the great island of Australia, with Van Diemen's Land and New Zealand. An emigrant to any of these remote countries must be either a capitalist or a labourer, or he may combine in himself both conditions; but even a mere labourer cannot emigrate without some capital, though the amount may be only enough to convey him to the spot where his labour and skill will be in demand. It was long a prevalent notion among nations, or perhaps we may rather say with those possessed of power at the head of nations (who have generally been slower in learning any great practical truth than the mass of the people, whose understanding is sharpened by a nearer view of their own interest), that emigration should be discouraged or prevented, as tending to weaken a nation. The objection, we believe, was generally founded rather on a notion that the nation lost by its diminished population, than that it suffered from the abstraction of capital. As to the matter of population, however, some observers even then could not fail to remark, that emigration did not seem to diminish the population, but that on the contrary it seemed to be soon followed by an increase. This was observed with respect to Portugal at the time when she was extending her conquests and colonies, and is a fact confirmed by more recent experience, the explanation of which presents no difficulty. The abstraction of capital, skill, and industry might seem, and indeed is primarily, so much good taken from the mother country; but inasmuch as the emigrants retain in their new settlements, through the medium of commercial exchange which is daily becoming more rapid and easy, a connexion with the parent state, it may be and often is the fact, that they ultimately contribute more to the wealth of the mother country when in the new settlements than they could have done at home. Many of those, for example, who settle in the western states of America or in Canada with no capital beyond their hands, by their industry become the possessors of a wellcultivated piece of land, and ultimately consume more of the products of British industry, for which they must give something in exchange, than if they had remained in their native country: and as, in order that emigration to new countries may be a successful undertaking to those who emigrate, and ultimately advantage ous to the mother country, there must be an emigration both of capitalists and labourers, it would seem to follow that a state, if it consult the happiness of its citizens, should place no impediments to the emigration either of capitalists of all kinds or of labourers or artisans of any kind, but should on the contrary give reasonable facilities. If a state then should be wise enough not to discourage emigration, it may be asked, should it aid and direct it? So far as a state should aid and direct emigra tion, there must be two distinct objects kept in view by the state; one must be to benefit the parent country, the other to benefit those who emigrate. On the contrary, as to the individual who emigrates, whether he emigrates under the protection and direction of the government or not, his sole object is of course to better his own condition. One cannot well conceive why a state, or any section or part of a nation, should make any contribution or raise any fund for the purpose of aiding emigration, except it be with the view of bettering the condition of some who cannot find employment at home, and at the same time adopting some systematic plan for improving the condition of those who are left behind. Yet any system of emigration thus conducted by government, or by societies, or by the inhabitants of particular districts, would fail in its primary object, relief to the emigrants, unless a corresponding amount of capital should be taken out of the country by other emigrants who might settle in the same place to which the emigrant labourers were sent. To effect such an adjustment between capital and labour, not only should both these elements of wealth in due proportion be transported to the new country, but such proportion should, for some time at least, be maintained by the body which superintends such system of emigration; an arrangement which seems impracticable, except by some such provisions as are hereinafter mentioned. It is further to be observed that, as no persons can ever succeed as emigrants who are not sober, intelligent, and industrious, and as such alone are consequently fit people to go to a new country, such alone should be sent out by a state or a society, if it interferes in the matter of emigration. But if a large number of the most industrious labourers should emigrate from a given district, and leave behind them the worthless and idle, though the emigrants might better their condition and improve the settlement of which they go to form a part, the mother country would be no gainer by this change. We are not inclined to consider that any advantage, at all commensurate to the expense, would result from any | emigration, however extensive, from districts where there is a superabundant and pauperized, or a pauperized and not su perabundant population. If the idle, the ignorant, and the vicious were exported wholesale, they would only die a few years sooner in the land of their new settlement, without conferring any benefit on it, and those of the same kind who were left behind would hardly be more susceptible of improvement in consequence of the removal of any part of their numbers which did not amount to pretty nearly the whole number; while the industrious and the intelligent, who, by the supposition, remain at home and are willing to labour whenever it is in their power, would hardly derive any benefit by this removal of the bad from among them, at all commensurate to the amount of capital which must be expended on such wholesale exportations. Besides, as already observed, unless a proper supply of emigrant capitalists can be secured, all general plans for the emigration of labourers can only lead to disappointment and starvation. Any plan, therefore, which shall have for its object the amelioration of a population sunk in ignorance or debased by pauperism, must be one of an internal character, one which must gradually and on certain fixed principles aim at removing the evils which exist in the social system. Emigration must be left to the free choice of individuals, and must be recommended to the young, the sober, and industrious solely on the grounds of offering to them a reasonable prospect of bettering their condition in a new country. The disadvantages of emigration however, when there is no plan, no controlling or directing power, are obvious. Emigrants often go to a new country without any definite or clear notion of what they are going to. Dissatisfied or unhappy at home, imagination pictures to them a remote and unknown country as an asylum from all the evils of life; or if they have any distinct idea of the new kind of existence which they are going to adopt, they often underrate the difficulties of the undertaking, or form a false estimate of their own capabilities to meet them. It is no wonder then that so many, on landing in the New World, are startled at the |