of the fourth page, to entitle any man after a Sect. 10. day's residence, or on his first arrival at a Town, having hired a house for six months in the morning, to go to the Sheriff in the afternoon and to be placed upon the Register, who when he claims to vote shall have resided for six months immediately preceding within the Town, &c. The alternative is disjunctive, when he claims to be registered or to vote. What then is the effect of this? That any one under the understanding that he shall not vote at an Election for six months, may claim forthwith to be placed on the Register. He is accordingly registered. No matter whether the Election take place in ten months or a fortnight thereafter; his name being on the Register, he is by law enabled to vote, and by law all inquiry other than of "the party tendering the vote, being truly the individual "mentioned in the said Register, of his being still possessed of the qualification there recorded, and of his not having previously "voted at that Election," is in Section XVI. of this Act, forbidden to be made. The Sheriff, moreover, the person who admits the vote, the person who returns the candidate,-is the person to decide upon the validity of such vote. The process of such decision may be afterwards contemplated. In the meantime, if the above be not the meaning of the words" or to vote," they can have no meaning, and are there

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Sect. to. fore superfluous, and have crept in through inadvertence;" but that cannot be the case, since they are inserted after four months' deliberation. It must therefore be a most wise provision, whose advantages are too deeply hidden to be yet discovered.

Secondly. Proprietor or Tenant of any House, Dwelling, Warehouse, or Counting"house, within the limits of the town; which, "either separately or jointly with any land owned "or occupied therewith, under the same landlord, "shall be of the annual value of not less than

107." Now observe, that it is not necessary that this joint or separate land be within the limits of the town; on the contrary, it is expressly stated, any land occupied under the same landlord. Hence, if this new elector, this one of those "persons of property and intelligence," to whom it is "expedient," and "for the evident utility of the subjects within Scot land," that "the right of Election" be " extended;"-if this worthy personage be tenant of a lodging or a shed, worth 1s. per annum; say, for which he engages to pay 1. to A, within the Burgh of B, and may also write himself tenant of other land belonging to the same landlord A, though not situate within such Burgh, not even within the County, not even in any part of Scotland, but in any part of England or Ireland, or in America, or in New South Wales; if this be so, he is, by our lawgivers,

considered of property and intelligence enough Sect. 10. to vote for the Burgh.

Again, had the qualification been less explicit in the first part, where it enumerates house, dwelling, &c. and more explicit in the latter part, no objection need have been taken; but as it is, it may be a matter of doubt whether it will include a mill, bakehouse, stone or slate wharf or yard, timber or coal yard, &c. These latter it certainly will not include, should the proprietor, as is usually the case when in affluent circumstances, prefer residing out of the Town; for one requisite is actual personal occupancy, and another is residence for six months preceding. By this Bill, a privilege is extended to paupers and culprits, which is denied to persons of real property and intelligence, unless they conform to an absurd regulation. The six months' resi dence is not required to be on the premises for which any one claims to be registered or to vote, but merely within the town; if, therefore, a felon has been six months in gaol, his residence there is sufficient to confer a right to vote. And all the wealthier merchants and tradesmen of a Town, are either forced within the Commissioners' limits, or are excluded from the right to vote. Another class, with equal

*I here gladly embrace the opportunity of expressing my gratitude to some ingenious friends, who favoured me with several valuable remarks upon this and other parts of the Bill.

Stuff

Sect. 10. injustice debarred from the exercise of the same right, is composed of those persons who, possessing nearly three-fourths of the best houses in Edinburgh, and by their expenditure contributing in the highest degree to its prosperity, seldom remain in the capital more than four or five months during the winter and spring. Nor are these the only persons who are hereby debarred from the exercise of that privilege; the chief landed proprietors within the Burgh, the owners of ground feued out on building leases, though possessing an interest in the Burgh to ten thousand or an hundred thousand times the amount of most of the electors, have no voice in the representation. I mean those proprietors, who, like Lord Moray in the Scottish capital, derive an income of five or ten thousand pounds a-year from feu duties or ground rents within the Burgh limits. But observe the anomaly. If the property be situated in a represented Burgh, it does not give a vote for Town or County; if it be not situated in a represented Burgh, it confers a vote for the County. Thus we see the person who has the largest property, who contributes most to the wealth and prosperity of the Town, who probably erected a large portion of it at his own expense, is, unless he reside in it for six months preceding the Election, considered to have no political interest in the welfare of the Burgh.

Thirdly. Unless it were too unreasonable, Sect. 10. we might make bold to ask, why it is a sine qua non, that the rent be paid to the "same landlord;" and wherefore a person, whose warehouse or counting-house is composed of two houses, each rendering 97. to the separate landlords, is not in virtue of his rent of 187. considered to possess an interest as much deserving representation, as the occupier of a dwelling, for the which he renders 101. because he pays that sum to one landlord? And, moreover, under the same head, wherefore a man, who, upon speculation or otherwise, hires a score of 91. houses within the limits, which he sublets to tenants at 107. apiece, does not enjoy the franchise in respect of his 1807. because he holds of various landlords, while each of his tenants, in respect of their single sum of 101. a head, possesses such privilege, because holding of one individual. What influence this individuality of the landlord ought to have upon the value of the tenant's property, it is rather difficult to perceive.

We may likewise ask information upon another point, either not perfectly clear, or anomalous if accepted according to its apparent meaning,-whether a proprietor of a house within a town, worth 67. or 81. a-year, and of a house of the yearly value of 81. or 91. without the town, is entitled to any vote in consideration of his being a proprietor to nearly the