UNIVERSITIES.
In the two English universities the parliamentary suffrage is independent of residence, property, or occupancy, being vested in the doctors and masters of arts of Cambridge and Oxford respectively, so long as they keep their names on the boards of their respective colleges. In that of Dublin, in like manner, it is pos sessed by the fellows, scholars, and gra duates of Trinity College, on the like condition.
The establishment of a general and uniform system of registration of voters, calculated to obviate much of the incon venience of contested returns, is another very important feature of the Reform Acts ; for the various and rather compli cated details of which we must refer the reader to the acts themselves.
Having thus given a view of the quali fications for exercising the parliamentary franchise as now established throughout the British Islands, it remains to notice the principal of those legal disqualifica tions which are of a personal nature, and operate independently of all proprietor ship or occupancy.
Every woman, of whatever age, and however independently situated as to pro perty and social relations, is as much excluded from voting as from being ejected. As to age in male persons, the only exception 'is that which excludes all minors, that is, all who have not corn, 2 Q pleted their twenty-first year. As to the exception which regards aliens, this is not the place in which to examine the various difficulties that in many cases have arisen and still arise in strictly defining who are aliens and who are not. By the ancient "law of parliament," which forms an in tegral portion of the common law, luna tics are very reasonably incapacitated, as also are paupers in city or borough elec tions. It was resolved by the House of Commons in 1699 (14th December), that " no peer of parliament" has a right to vote for members of that house. After the Union with Ireland, this resolution, which was usually repeated at the be ginning of every session, was altered into the following form "That no peer of this realm, except such peer of that part of the United Kingdom called Ireland as shall for the time being be actually elected, and shall not have declined to serve, for any county, city, or borough of Great Britain, hath any right to give his vote in the election of any member to serve in parliament." The vast increase, since the
commencement of the last century, owing to the establishment of so many new branches of revenue, in the number of persons employed immediately by the crown as revenue-collectors, occasioned the enactment of several statutes of ex clusion from the parliamentary franchise. Thus the 22 George III. C. 41, excludes every class of officers concerned in the collection or management of the excise, customs, stamp duties, salt duties, window and house duties, or in any department of the business of the post-office. By 3 George IV. c. 56, § 14, it was first en acted that no justice, receiver, surveyor, or constable, appointed by that act at any one of the eight police-offices of the Eng lish metropolis, shall be capable of voting for Middlesex, Surrey, Westminster, or Southwark ; and by 10 George IV. c. 44, which .established the new system of police in certain districts of the metro polis (the operation of which has since been extended to meet the local exten sion of the police-system), it was enacted that no justice, receiver, or person belong ing to the police-force appointed by virtue of that act, shall be capable of voting for Middlesex, Surrey, Hertfordshire, Essex, or Kent, or for any city or borough within the metropolitan district. By 2 Geo. II., c. 24, § 6, persons legally convicted of perjury or subornation of perjury, or of taking or asking any bribe, are thereby for ever incapacitated from voting.
As regards religious grounds of dis qualification in general, it should be ob served, that as no oaths are now required to be taken, nor declarations to be made, as preliminary either to registration or to voting, all such disabilities as might have arisen from refusal to take or make them are of course removed.