The Express.
London, England, 1868-09-17 00:00:00

CITY OF LONDON'

Mr. spencer Percival, tho barrister appointed to
revise the lists of voters for the City of London, held his
fourth sitting for that purpose this morning, in the Court
of Common Pleas, Guildhall.
The liberals were represented by Mr. Sidney Smith and
Mr. Ledger, and the conservatives by Messrs. e. Bailey
and T. Harper.

IMPORTANT DFCISIONS.
Shortly after the commencement of the proceedings,
The Revising Barrister gave judgment in a cats ia
which the name and description bad been omitted from
the landlord's column. He had held throughout the
revhdon that under the 40th section he was em-
powered to supply the residence, but he had
doubted whether he could go so far as to supply
the description. He had looked into the cases
bearing on the point, and he was glad to say he thought
he was in a position to do so. The 40th section was dis-
tinct in stating, that " where the place of abode of any
person who shall be included in any list shall be wholly
=Madill any case where the same bythis act is directed to
be specified therein, or if it shall be insufficiently &s-
-cribed for the purposes of being identified, such revising
barrister shall expunge the name of every such person
from the list, unless the omission is supplied to the satisfac-
tion of such barrister, in which case he shall then and there
insert such name." Holding, as he did, that this clause
applied to the lodger list, he thought he was bound in
this case to invert the place of abode, it haviug been sup-
plied to him, and following the decision in the case of
Luckett and Knowles, he should take evidence to amend
the description in the second column.
The other Qum in which the ,Revising Barrister gave his
decision was where the nature of the qualification was
stated to be a workshop, it being proved by the evidence
that it really consisted of two rooms, ouu of which
was used as a shop, and the other a
residence for the claimant's children, and that
therefore " house" was the proper ground of qualifica-
tion. He thought ho could make the necessary ranee'',
mint. The clue of Hutchins and Harlow showed that
the third column was intended to point out the nature of
the qualification, and the fourth for a more particular
deocnptica of it. Accosting to the 2nd of William IV.
it appeared that the legiblature did not require
more in the list than was necessary to enable the
objector to make inquiries, and a learned judge in inter-
preting the law bearing on the point expressed it as his opi-
nion that any law would be mischievous which required
the description to be in the terms of a lawyer, and not
those which could be understood by a man of common
sense. He would, therefore, alter the word " workshop"
into "house" as a better description, and whilst disallow-
ing the claim as a lodger, admitted the qualification as a
householder.

Replying to an argument of Mr. Harper!
The Revising Barrider said the only &stinction between
lodgings consisted in the question whether they were
rated or not. If a man was rated for his
lodgings or part of a house occupied by him
separately, which be (the revising barrister) be-
lieved to be the definition of lodgings, the act did not re-
quire an estimate of the value, but if on the other Land
he was exempt from the payment of rates it was necessary
to ascertain whether the value was 101. a year. If a man
was separately rated he might claim as a householder,
and if not he might claim as a lodger.