Marylebone, Finsbury, the Tower Hamlets, and Lambeth, each of the last returning 2 members.

The larger counties were divided into districts; and while previously there had been 52 constituencies, returning 94 members, there were now 82 returning 159 members.

In the counties the old 40s. freeholders were retained, and three new classes of voters introduced ::

(i.) Copyholders of £10 per annum ;

(ii.) Leaseholders of the annual value of £10 for a term of 60 years, or of the annual value of £50 for 20 years; and

(iii.) Occupying tenants paying an annual rent of £50.

In boroughs the franchise was given to all £10 resident householders, subject to certain conditions.

In the Reformed House of Commons, England returned 471 members, Wales 29, Scotland 53, and Ireland 105, making a total of 658. Since then a few boroughs have been disfranchised because of Bribery and Corrupt Practices at the Elections.

The

Poor Law Amendment. The Poor of England till the time of Henry VIII., subsisted entirely upon private benevolence, and the charity of well-disposed Christians. monasteries were in particular, their principal resource; and in consequence, a very numerous and a very idle poor were supported upon what was daily distributed in alms at the gates of the religious houses. Upon the total dissolution of these, the inconvenience of thus encouraging the poor in habits of indolence and beggary was quickly felt throughout the kingdom and abundance of statutes were made for providing for the poor and impotent. These poor were principally of two sorts: sick and impotent, and therefore unable to work; idle and sturdy, and therefore able, but not willing, to exercise any honest employment. To provide in some measure for these, in and about the metropolis, Edward the Sixth founded three royal hospitals: Christ's and St. Thomas's for the relief of the impotent through infancy and sickness and Bridewell for the punishment and employment of the vigorous and idle. But these were far from being sufficient for the care

of the poor throughout the kingdom at large: and therefore, after many other fruitless experiments, by a statute of Queen Elizabeth, overseers of the poor were established in every parish.

The two great objects of the statute seem to have been,

(i.) To relieve the impotent poor, and them only;

(ii.) To find employment for such as are able to work.

The results of the statute proved eminently mischievous, through the culpable negligence of those by whom its provisions were at one period administered.

In 1834 the system of poor laws was revised and amended, by which many of the evils complained of were remedied. Instead of each parish having its own workhouse under the sole control of its own Guardians and overseers, different parishes according to their population were comprised in one Union, and placed under the management of a Board of Guardians annually chosen by the ratepayers of the respective parishes, whose authority was subject to that of the Poor Law Commissioners. The system, as at present organized is far from perfect, but a considerable improvement upon its former condition.

Municipal Reform Bill. The earlier history of the incorporation of the English towns is involved in some degree of obscurity.

Prior to the Norman Conquest, there existed, at least, the germ of municipal corporations. It was usual for persons of free condition to settle in the towns and occupy houses as tenants of the crown, or some inferior lord, under the name of burgesses; to form themselves into voluntary associations or fraternities, called guilds: to be entitled in their capacity of burgesses to certain property, to be exempt from certain burdens and subject to certain liabilities.

From the Norman Conquest, charters were from time to time granted by the Kings to certain towns, giving them permission to have officers, such as Mayors, Aldermen, Bailiffs, &c., for the government of their towns; to hold courts of their own for the administration of justice; and to enjoy many other liberties and privileges. The corporations were generally self-elected, and subject to no popular control.

By the Municipal Corporation Act (1835) the corporate towns, or as they are denominated in the statute, boroughs, (with the exception of London and a few other places) are placed under one uniform plan of constitution. The act explains who are entitled to be placed on the borough roll, and provides that in every borough there shall be elected annually a mayor, and periodically a certain number of aldermen and of councillors, who together shall constitute the council of the borough. This council is to transact the general business of the borough. Two auditors and two assessors are to be annually elected; the former to audit the accounts, and the latter to assist in revising the burgess list. The Council may appoint a town-clerk and a treasurer, neither of whom is to be a member of the council; and if the borough have a separate court or quarter sessions, shall also appoint a coroner and a clerk of the peace.

Free Trade. The first statute extant on corn is that of Edward III. in 1360, which forbids its exportation, except to certain places where it was necessary to the King's interest, and to be named by him.

In the reigns of Richard II. and Henry VI. the policy was reversed, and liberty given to export to any places.

In the reign of Edward IV., 1464, we find the first protective law in favour of the agriculturist, which forbade the importation of corn, unless the price of wheat exceeded 6s. 8d. the quarter.

A statute of Henry VIII. positively forbade exportation, and one of Edward VI. entitled "An Act for the Maintenance and Increase of Tillage and Corn," attempted to make the cultivation of corn compulsory, by enacting a fine of 5s., payable by each parish on every acre of land in each deficient in tillage, when compared with the quantity that had been tilled at any period since the accession of Henry VIII.

The Act of Henry VIII. forbidding the exportation of corn was repealed by Mary.

In 1670 heavy import duties were imposed, the legislature designing to keep wheat at an average of about 53s. 4d. per quarter.

In 1689 the landowners obtained the payment of a bounty

of 5s. per quarter on the exportation of wheat when the price did not exceed 48s. These bounties were repealed in 1815.

In 1773 importation was allowed at the nominal duty of 6d. whenever the price of wheat should be above 48s. This price was raised at various periods, till in 1815 the importation of wheat for home consumption was positively forbidden when the price was under 80s.

In 1829 the sliding scale or graduated duty was introduced; the duty when the price was 62s. being 24s. 8d., and gradually diminishing as the price advanced til at 75s. and upwards it fell to 1s. The operation of this principle, however, was found to be inconvenient and unsalutary; and at length by Sir Robert Peel's Bill of 1846, the trade in corn was ultimately left entirely free.

The Anti-Corn Law League, of which Mr. Richard Cobden was the most distinguished advocate, was formed at Manchester in September, 1838, to procure the abolition of the corn laws and the promotion of free-trade principles.

The Rights of the People of Britain. The absolute rights of every Briton are, by English writers, reduced to three principal heads,-The Right of personal security, The Right of personal liberty, and The Right of private property. No man shall be interrupted in the legal enjoyment of his life, his body, his health, his reputation, nor limited in his personal freedom, without due course of law; nor be deprived of the free use and disposal of his acquisitions, save by the laws of the land. These rights have been asserted and confirmed, from time to time, by a series of acts, beginning with the Magna Charta, and ending with the Bill of Rights, which are not to be considered as the origin of these rights, but merely as the acknowledgment of their existence. Among the principal securities of British freedom are:-(i.) The established principle, that no man's liberty can be restrained by the government further than the law allows :-(ii.) The many offices of consequence in the civil administration, which are exercised by the people themselves, such as those of the Justices of the Peace, the Jury, the Grand Jury, the offices in the Municipal administration, and above all, the Right of assembling, at pleasure, for the purpose of discussion. The personal responsibility of Public

officers, and the celebrated Habeas Corpus Act, are great securities against arbitrary encroachment. But the chief protection is the Liberty of the Press.

"Of a Constitution so wisely contrived, so strongly raised, and so highly finished, it is hard to speak with that praise, which is justly and severely its due:-the thorough and attentive contemplation of it will furnish its best panegyric........... ....To sustain, to repair, to beautify this noble pile, is a charge entrusted principally to the nobility and such gentlemen of the kingdom, as are delegated by their country to Parliament. The protection of the Liberty of Britain is a duty which they owe to themselves, who enjoy it; to their ancestors, who transmitted it down; and to their posterity, who will claim at their hands this, the best birthright, and noblest inheritance of mankind." Blackstone.