The Sun.
London, England, 1865-09-29 00:00:00

Middlesex Registrations.

Mr. Edmond Beales, the barrister appointed to revise
the lists of electors for the several parishes and precincts
of the county of Middlesex, held his fourth court yesterday,
at Jack Straw's Castle, Hampstead-heath, for the purpose
of revising the lists of the parishes in the Hampstead poll-
ing district.
As on former occasions, the liberal interest was repre-
sented by Mr. W. Albert James, of Parliament-street,
Westminster ; Mr. T. Alley Jones and Mr. J. Alley Jones,
his son, appeared for the Middlesex Conservative Registra-
tion Committee; and Mr. Henry Smith, of Norfolk-street,
Strand, on behalf of the National Conservative Registra-
tion Society.

The parishes revised were those of St. John, Hamptead,
St. Mary, Hornsey, and Willesden.
Samuel Thomas Belton, of 9, King-street, Portman-
street, on the Hampstead list for a leasehold house, was
objected to by the Conservatives.
The voter stated that his residence had been unchanged
for 40 years, and that he built the house constituting his
franchise 20 years ago, and still held it.

Barrister—What is the ground of the objection ? Or
have you more than one ?
Mr. Smith—Only one ; that he had sold the house.
The Barrister asked the voter what he claimed as ex-
penses.

The Voter—.£l. I have to employ a person at home, and
there is the expense of driving here.
Mr. Smith—What are you ?
The Voter—A fruiterer.
The Barrister—Well, 1 shall award £1 as costs. It is an
objection to the register.
Mr. Beales then addressed the agents on the subject of
costs—Before entering upon these
_objections, I think it
right to state that the cases which have occurred, and the
questions which have been very properly and usefully
raised before me in the course of the two days since the
commencement of the revision, with reference to the ques-
tion of costs on objections to new claims, or persons on the
list of claimants, together with the observations on the
subject addressed to me ley Mr. Smith, at Uxbridge, on
Friday last, at the commencement of the revision, and
those addressed to me by Mr. James, on Wednesday, at
Edgware, have induced me to carefully reconsider, on this
point, the act of last session, and to refer to the report of
the parliamentary committee on the registration of county
voters as calculated to assist me in the interpretation of
the act where it was in doubt, the act having, I presume,
been more or less founded on that very valuable report ;
and the result of such further consideration is that I have
come to the conclusion that on this point the act of last
session (the County Voters Registration Act, 1865) was
intended to alter the practice, and does alter the practice,
only as regards objections to persons on the register, and
that it was intended to leave, and does leave, this practice
unaltered as regards objections to new claims, or persons
on the list of claimants; and I am also of opinion that it is
not advisable to make any change, and that the act does
not oblige me to make any change, in the practice which,
after much deliberation, had been adopted by my prede-
cessors and continued by myself in the Middlesex revision,
of not giving costs against the objector on such objections,
except in the extreme case of the objection being perse-
vered in after satisfactory infornation received as to the
particulars and validity of the claim. The committee, in
their report of April, 1864, state it to be their opinion that
it would be neither just nor politic to render the law of
costs such as might deter or materially discourage persons
from objecting to new claimants, but in order to assist
such claimants in establishing their claim to be registered,
without the expense or trouble of attending the revision
court, they recommended that any elector objecting to any
person on the list of claimants should send notice of his
objection, stating the ground or grounds thereof, to the
overseers and to the person objected to, and that the person
objected to should be at liberty to make a statutory decla-
ration in support of his right to be registered, and inform
the objector thereof, and that then the objector, if perse-
vering in his objection, should, unless he succeeded in
keeping the name off the register, be necessarily subject
to costs, leaving it to be implied that otherwise he ought
not to be subject to costs. Now the act of last session
has not adopted this recommendation, which appears to
me to be a most just and salutary one, in any way or to
any extent whatever as regards objections to new claims,
but has adopted it in part as regards objections
to persons on the register, by requiring the notice of objec-
tion to the vote of any such person to specifically state the
ground or grounds of objection ; at least such appears to
be the purport of the exception contained in the somewhat
peculiarly framed and expressed 6th section of the act,
which section, however, most clearly enacts that notices of
objection to persons on the list of claimants may be given
according to the provisions of the 7th section of the prin-
cipal act, that is, according to the old practice, without spe-
cifying the ground or grounds of objection. Tho subsequent
clauses of the act relating to objections all appear to be
limited, by mentioning or referring to several or separate
grounds of objection, to the mode of objection then re-
quired to be made to persons on the register, leaving un-
touched and unaltered the mode of objection to persons on
the list of claimants, although in some cases, as in the 7th
section, the language is somewhat confused, and although
as regards the 14th section raising the maximum of costs
from 20s. to £5, it may be open to doubt whether it does or
not contemplate only costs in respect of objections to the
votes of persons on the register, that is objections which
may comprise several grounds of objection, as it enacts
that the sum ordered to be paid by way of costs shall not
upon any-one vote exceed the sum of £5. When, therefore,
I find the attention of the Parliamentary committee, as
fully appears by the evidence, repeatedly and pointedly
drawn to the practice which had been pursued in Middle-
sex, of not giving costs in cases of objections to new claims
not sustained, on the ground that the real purpose of the
objection was to require the claimant to give some evidence
prima facie at least of his right to a vote and to be regis-
tered beyond his own mere claim or notice, thus assimi-
lating claimants in counties to claimants in boroughs, who
have to appear in court and substantiate their
right to be registered, and when I find the act of
last session not only omitting to adopt the recommenda-
tion of the committee as to requiring the objector to
specify his grounds of objection to a new claim, and sub-
jecting him to costs only in cases of his persevering in his
objection after notice of a statutory declaration made by
the claimant in support of his right to be registered, but
expressly continuing tho old general form of objecting,
without the statement of any specified grounds, to persons
on the list of claimants, I can come to no other conclusion
than that the legislature did not intend to interfere with
the practice as to the objections to new claims which had
been in operation previously as regards Middlesex, and
which I had myself laboured to render as fair and just and
as little onerous as possible to the claim, by saving him the
trouble and expense of appearing before me, if he would
give by letter to the objector that evidence of his right to
be registered which the parliamentary committee suggested
should be given by the more formal mode of statutory de-
claration. I must, therefore, in exercise of the discretion
given to me by the 46th section of the principal act, adhere
to a practice which seems to have received indirectly, or
implied at least, the sanction of the legislature, and which
unquestionably, though apparently sometimes harsh in in-
dividual cases, has been productive of great public benefit
and of great facility in carrying into effect the intention
and express objects of the legislature, by rendering the
register a far more pure and correct record than it formerly
was of those who are strictly and rightfully entitled to form
the constituency, according to the present system of the
franchise. I may add that impartial justice would not be
done by acting upon the 46th section of the principal act,
so on one hand to give costs against the objector in case of
his failing to support an objection to a new claim, and, on
the other hand, to give costs in his favour in case of his
supporting the objection, because I have not the same power
of compelling the payment of costs by him, that is, where
numerous objections are made, as in the case in Middlesex
and similar largo constituencies, by the same elector as a
political agent. In case of my ordering him to pay the
costs of any objection he fails to support, I cannot under
the principal act hear any other objection by him until he
was paid such costs, which it is his interest therefore, and
which, unless he is prepared to abandon all other objections,
he is obliged to pay to the claimant at once ; but there is
no such hold over the claimant in case of my ordering him,
in addition to rejecting his claim and depriving him of a
vote, to pay the costs of failing to support his claim, and
the objector would in very many, perhaps in most cases, be
put to the delay andtrouble of enforcing my order in his fa-
vour by further proceedings against the claimant. For these
various reasons I consider it my duty to continue the former
practice as to not giving costs in respect of unsustained ob-
jections to new claims, except in the cases referred to of ob-
jections persevered in after satisfactory information re-
ceived of the solidity of the claim.
Mr. James said it might be satisfactory to Mr. Beales to
be informed that Mr. Udal, revising barrister for Sunder-
land, had come to a similar decision with regard to the new
act. His opinion appeared to be that although the legisla-
ture had increased the amount of costs which might be
awarded from £1 to £5 in the case of objections to the re-
gistry, it would not be policy to interfere with regard to new
claims ; but ho thought that where the objector litigiously
continued his objection after reasonable answer had been
made to the objection costs would be awarded. And, see-
ing the facility of making claims, the difficulty of proof and
other circumstances, although Mr. West had given evidence
before the committee to the effect that in his judgment the
costs ought to follow the event, whether against the new
claim list or against the register, still he thought it would
be an erroneous practice to pursue in largo counties, and he
therefore determinea to pursue a similar course to that which
Mr. Beales had now determined on.
Tho decision of the barrister applied to several cases in
the course of the day.
The court sits to-morrow at Bedfout.