QUALIFICATIONS FOR CITIES, ETC. 17 freeholds by marriage, marriage settlement, devise, or promotion to any benefice or office, the qualification is the same-40s. by the year at least above all charges. But with respect to other freeholders (with certain limited exceptions), the act has now raised their qualification to the clear yearly value of not less than £10 above all rents and charges payable out of, or in respect of, the same (h).— As to copyholds, or other property not of freehold tenure: Persons seised of such property are qualified, if it be of the clear yearly value of not less than £10 over and above all rents and charges payable out of or in respect of the same. As to leaseholds: Every person entitled, as a lessee or assignee, to any lands or tenements, of whatever tenure, for the unexpired residue of a term, is qualified, if the term was originally not less than sixty years (whether determinable on life or not), by a clear yearly value of £10 or upwards, if it was originally not less than twenty years (whether so determinable or not), by a clear yearly value of £50 or upwards over and above all rents and charges payable out of or in respect of the same. With respect, however, to a sub-lessee, or an assignee of a sub-lessee, it is required that, in order to vote in respect of such term of sixty or twenty years, he should be also in actual occupation of the premises. As to the occupation as tenant, under liability to yearly rent: Every person is qualified by the act who shall occupy as tenant any lands or tenements for which he shall be bona fide liable to a yearly rent of not less than £50 (i).

Qualifications of electors for cities and boroughs] -We have stated the qualifications of electors for knights of the shires, and it now remains to notice

those for citizens and burgesses, which differ greatly from the former. Under the new system established by the Reform Act (2 Will. 4, c. 45), the rights of voting consist, first, of a new right conferred by the act; secondly, of old rights reserved (under certain conditions) in perpetuity; and thirdly, of old rights reserved (under certain conditions) for a time, which last are every day becoming of less importance.

The new right or qualification conferred by the act is in respect of the occupation within the borough (as owner or tenant) of any house or other building, being either separately of the clear yearly value of not less than £10, or of that value jointly with land in the same borough, occupied by the same party as owner, or as tenant under the same landlord. The party must have occupied for twelve months, have paid all the poor rates and assessed taxes, and have resided six months within the borough, or within seven statute miles thereof. The old rights reserved in perpetuity are, as a burgess or freeman, and (in the City of London) a freeman and liveryman, and (in other towns being counties corporate) a freeholder or burgage tenant (j). The old rights reserved for a time are all such rights of voting as formerly existed in boroughs (in respect of whatever qualification), and not included among those which the act retains in perpetuity. Among these is comprised the right of inhabitants paying scot and lot, of inhabitant householders, of inhabitant potwallers (cookers of their own diet), of inhabitants generally, and of freeholders and burgage tenants in cities and boroughs not being counties of themselves. All such rights, as they existed according to the custom of the several places, are retained for the life of the parties who were entitled on the 7th of June, 1832, the day on which the act received the royal assent (k).

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Registration.]-Such is a cursory view of the qualifications of electors, and it must be added that, before ever such qualified persons can vote. they must be registered in the manner pointed out in the Reform Act, and the 6 Vict. c. 18 (7).

Some persons, in addition to those before mentioned, are expressly disqualified to vote; such are lunatics, idiots, minors, persons convicted of perjury or bribery, and females, whether married or single. So metropolitan police magistrates (within their jurisdiction), or persons employed about the duties of excise, customs, stamps, salt, window or houses, or post-office. So no person can vote for a city or borough who has received parochial relief within twelve months (m).

Privileges of Parliament.]-There are many privileges attached to members of either House of Parlia ment, the chief of which are those of freedom of speech and person. As to this latter, a peer is (by virtue of his dignity) exempt from arrest in civil cases at all times, and a member of the House of Commons (by the privilege of Parliament), not only while the House is sitting, but for such a period before the first meeting, and after the dissolution of Parliament, as may enable him conveniently to come from, and return to, any part of the kingdom. The immunity continues also for forty days after every prorogation, and forty days before the next appointed meeting, which is now in effect so long as the Parliament subsists, it seldom being prorogued for more than four score days at a time (n). So greatly is this privilege favoured, that it has been held that, inasmuch as a member of either House of Parliament is privileged from arrest, a writ of capias against him is irregular, and will be set aside, although, in the case of a member of the Lower House, the writ be not intended to be put into exe

cution till his privilege expires, nor although, in either instance, no proceedings are contemplated against the person of the member, but the writ is only sued out as part of process to outlawry (o).

Actions may be freely brought against peers or members of the House of Commons or their servants; and, for the benefit of commerce, it is provided, by 6 Geo. 4, c. 16, ss. 10, 11, that if a trader, being a member of Parliament, and personally served with a summons in an action for recovery of a debt of such amount as shall be sufficient to support a fiat in bankruptcy, shall not, within one calendar month, comply with the process; or if, being personally served with a preremptory order from a court of equity to pay any sum of money, he shall neglect to do so, he shall be deemed to have committed an act of bankruptcy (p).

Statutes.]-For an admirable sketch of the method of passing a statute, the reader is referred to to 1 Black. Com. p 181-185; also to 2 Steph. Com. 403-410. When a bill has received the royal assent, it is then, and not before, a statute or act of Parliament. This statute or act is placed among the records of the kingdom, there needing no formal promulgation to give it the force of a law, as was necessary by the civil law with regard to the Emperor's edicts; because every man, in judgment of law, is party to the making of an act of Parliament, being present thereat by his representatives. However, a copy thereof is usually printed from the King's press, for the information of the whole land. An act of Parliament thus made, is the exercise of the highest authority that this kingdom acknowledges upon earth. It hath power to bind every subject in the land, and the dominions thereunto belonging; nay, even the King himself,

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if particularly named therein (q); and it cannot be altered, amended, dispensed with, suspended or repealed, but in the same forms, and by the same authority of Parliament; for it is a maxim in law, that it requires the same strength to dissolve as to create an obligation. It is true, it was formerly held, that the King might in many cases dispense with penal statutes; but now, by 1 W. and M. st. 2, c. 2, it is declared that the suspending or dispensing with laws by legal authority, without consent of Parliament, is illegal (r).

Time of operation of statute.]—A statute begins to operate from the time when it receives the royal assent, unless some other time be fixed by the act itself for the purpose. The rule on this subject was formerly different, for at common law every act of Parliament, which had no provision to the contrary, was considered, as soon as it passed (that is, received the royal assent), as having been in force retrospectively from the first day of the session of Parliament in which it passed, though in fact it might not have received the royal assent, or even been introduced into Parliament, until long after that day. This doctrine, however, no longer prevails, it being expressly provided by the 33 Geo. 3, c. 13, that where no other direction is given, every act shall be considered as commencing from the date endorsed upon it as the date of its receiving the royal assent—a manifest improvement on the former law, though it has been doubted (and with reason) whether even the new rule is placed upon the right basis, and whether some fixed and reasonable period ought not always to be interposed between the passing of an act and the time of its coming into operation, so as to give the subjects of the realm an opportunity of becoming