rough shall heretofore have been taken; The borough qualifications thus for a time preserved and saved out of the disqualifying provisions of the new Act may be enumerated as follows: 1. Inhabitancy, or having a permanent abode Inhabitants. there, in which the inhabitant may at any time abide and does occasionally dwell. 2. The condition of potwaller, (person furnishing Potwallers. his own diet). 3. Inhabitancy and householding, that is, having Inhabitant exclusive right to the outward door of his dwelling. householders. 4. Inhabitancy and paying scot and taking lot, Scot and lot. being rated and paying to the relief of the poor. and burgage 5. Freeholds or burgage tenements, acquired in Freeholders cities or boroughs by descent, succession, marriage, tenants. marriage settlement, devise, benefice, or office, be- S. 35. tween the 1st March, 1831, and the 7th June, 1832. Having shown and stated the various qualifications necessary to give a title to vote in election of members for counties, and for cities and boroughs, the next topic to be treated of is the duties and necessary acts to be performed by the various persons through and by means of whom the voter's title is to be matured to a right to vote, by reason and in consequence of the performance of those duties. Charge on overseers. Who are. CHAPTER V. DUTIES OF OVERSEERS, &C. SECTION 1. LISTS (of Voters for COUNTIES) to be made out by Overseers, from Notices of Claims; for BOROUGHS, &c. by Overseers and Town Clerks, Clerks of Livery Companies, and Returning Officers of LONDON. THE Parish Overseer is made by this Act a very important and responsible officer, having in counties, &c. very onerous ministerial duties to perform for the execution of many of its most material provisions. By Sect. 79, the words " overseers of the poor" are made to include all persons who, by virtue of OFFICE OF APPOINTMENT, shall execute the duties of the office of Overseer of the Poor. The word office will include churchwardens. ANY By Section 11 they are not to be appointed returning officer. S.XXXVIII. By the 38th Section the overseer is constituted Registering official objector to all such claims to vote for members for counties as he shall deem objectionable. officer. S. XXXVII. Register of votes for counties. Yearly notice. Overseers are, by Sections 37 and 38, made mainly instrumental in preparing for the formation of permanent Registers of persons entitled to vote in the election of Knights of the shire or County Members. For that purpose they are required [Section 37] to procure yearly notices to voters to be affixed to all the church or chapel doors of their respective parishes, &c., or if none, in some public situation there, on tice. the 20th June, announcing the time of making out Yearly nothe Lists of County Electors; whereby their parishioners or townspeople claiming right to vote are to be called on to notify, in writing, to the Overseers their claims, by transmitting to such Overseers their names and the nature of their qualification, and the locality or precise situation, and common appellation of their qualifying property (or the name of the occupying tenant), on pain of exclusion from the Register. The Form of the Notice and List is dictated by The Notice is to be worded as follows:- Notice of the making out of the Lists, to be given by the Overseers. [or for the notice. We hereby give notice, that we shall, on or before the last Form of day of July in this year, make out a list of all persons entitled to vote in the election of a knight or knights of the shire for the county of riding, parts, or division of the county of as the case may be,] in respect of property situate wholly or in part within this parish [or township]; and all persons so entitled are hereby required to deliver or transmit to us, on or before the twentieth day of July in this year, a claim in writing, containing their CHRISTIAN NAME AND SURNAME, their PLACE OF ABODE, the NATURE OF THEIR QUALIFICATION, and the NAME OF THE STREET, lane, or other like PLACE WHEREIN THE PROPERTY IN RESPECT OF WHICH THEY CLAIM to vote is SITUATED, and if the property be not situated in any street, lane, or other like place, then such claim must describe the property by the name by which it is usually known, or by the name of the tenant occupying the same; and each of such persons so claiming must also at the same time pay to us the sum of one shilling. Persons omitting to deliver or transmit such claim or to make such payment will C be EXCLUDED FROM THE REGISTER OF THE VOTERS for this county [or riding, parts, or division, as the case may be.] [In subsequent years after one thousand eight hundred and thirty-two, add the following words, "But persons whose names are now on the register are not "required to make a fresh claim so long as they "retain the same qualification, and continue in the same place of "abode as described in the register."] (Signed) A. B. C. D. Overseers of the Parish E. F. From the notices sent in resulting from that public announcement, they are to make a List; the following is the prescribed Form, which describes its nature. THE LIST OF PERSONS entitled to vote in the Election of a Knight [or Knights] of the Shire for the County of County of to wit, [or the [or for as the case may [or Township, as Christian name Place of abode. Nature of qualification. Adams, John Cheapside, London. Freehold house. parish. Ball, William Market Street, Lan-Lease of warehouse Duke Street. for years. Boyce, Henry Church Street, in Fifty Acres of Land High Field Farm. caster. this parish. as occupier. In future years lists of persons registered must also be made. [S. 38.] * See (p. 52.) paragraph on this announcement. The duties of the Overseer, under the 37th Section, in this particular respect, aided by the forms prescribed, are so succinctly, plainly, and intelligibly indicated and pointed out by the specific section of the Act, as to be incapable of misapprehension, and therefore need no other or further elucidation, and cannot be usefully abridged or enlarged on. voters. So, under the 38th Section, the ministerial duties Preparing and publishof this officer in preparing, making, and publishing ing lists of Lists of Voters, as there defined, are clear, comprehensive, and conspicuous; and are practically illustrated and instanced in and by the several forms furnished in the Schedule, in a very satisfactory and sufficient manner for every purpose of instruction and direction. vote. Not so perhaps is the by-far most important pro- Power to object to claim vision of the same clause, empowering the Overseer of right to to object to the claimant's stated right, by raising doubts thereto, through the medium of the mar- Mode and ginal notification of objection to the voter, by the objecting. simple words "objected to." Without considering or inquiring whether it would not have been more satisfactory and useful, as well as fair and candid, that the short nature and ground of the objection should not be stated, it will be sufficient, perhaps, in aid of the officer in the performance of this the most delicate as well as ungracious part of his prescribed service, to make some few suggestions for his guidance on the true legal interpretation of this part of the Statute, with reference to the other clauses and the objects of the Bill. terms of |