CHAP. III. tion under 1882, Mr. Bradlaugh appeared in Parliament and took the oath upon a copy of the New Testament which he had brought with him. Upon this he was expelled, by 297 to 80 votes, for violating the orders of the House, Victoria. and a new writ for Northampton was ordered. A long struggle now began between the House and Mr. Bradlaugh. He was thrice re-elected by Northampton, and at length in 1886, having taken the oath, he was permitted to take his seat. Contrary to expectation, he proved a very useful member. Laws. A Burial Laws Amendment Act was passed in 1880, The which permitted the burial of Nonconformists and others Burial in Church of England burial-grounds without the service. of the Church of England, and in some cases with other services. Game The Ground Game Act of 1880, more widely known Ground as the Hares and Rabbits Bill, was carried, after great opposition, by Sir William Harcourt. By this act, an inalienable right was conferred on the occupier to destroy hares and rabbits found upon his land under certain conditions. laneous In 1881 measures were passed reforming the law of Miscel conveyancing and the law of libel as affecting newspapers. Acts. The parcel post was established in 1882, and acts relating to electric lighting, Government annuities, and married women's property were passed. Patents were dealt with in 1883, and an act was passed for the encouragement of Irish industry and enterprise. IX. PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. measures. The wide extension of the suffrage, with protective Reform measures against bribery, and the provision of facilities for voting at elections, have been important features of her Majesty's reign. Ballot. As early as 1833 Mr. Grote took up the question of the The ballot, and he continued to bring forward his motion almost yearly until the year 1839. His speeches were distinguished for their calm and philosophical arguments; but although the minority in favour of the ballot rose Legislation under Queen CHAP. III. from 106 in 1833 to 216 in 1839, the majority against it rose in the same period from 211 to 333. When Mr. Grote retired from Parliament, Mr. Ward took up the Victoria. motion, but he was defeated in 1842 by 290 to 157. In 1848 Mr. Henry Berkeley succeeded to the charge, and in that year he managed to snatch a victory for his motion by 86 to 81 votes. The division was a very small one ; and when Mr. Berkeley brought on his motion again in 1849, he was defeated by a majority of 51. In 1851, however, he carried his motion, in spite of the opposition of Lord John Russell and the Government, by a majority of 51, but the matter got no further. In 1852 the majority against the ballot was 102, and in 1860 107. The Septennial Act. The Mr. Tennyson d'Eyncourt made several ineffectual attempts to procure the repeal of the Septennial Act, on the ground that prolonged Parliaments were inimical to popular freedom; but there was a growing indifference amongst members to the subject, and whereas the motion. was rejected in 1833 by 213 to 164, in 1837 the division only showed 96 against the motion and 87 for it. Even these numbers were greatly diminished in 1843, when Mr. Sharman Crawford's repeal motion was lost by 46 to 23. In 1839 Sir Hesketh Fleetwood's motion to reduce the Franchise. county franchise to £10 was rejected by 207 to 81. County Chartist demonstrations. Large numbers of the working classes, who were disappointed with the results of the Reform Act of 1832, and whose sufferings were great in consequence of the scarcity of work and the dearness of food, formed themselves into Chartist organisations in the fall of 1837. They began to agitate for radical political reforms, and in 1838 their leaders drew up the six points of the People's Charter, namely, manhood suffrage, equal electoral districts, vote by ballot, annual Parliaments, abolition of property qualification for members of the House of Commons, and payment of members of Parliament for their services. The movement excited great enthusiasm, and spread rapidly. Among its leaders were Fergus O'Connor, Ernest Jones, and Thomas Cooper. Most of Legisla tion under Queen petition. the Chartists supported an appeal to moral force only, CHAP. III. but a considerable number undoubtedly advocated more violent methods. A national convention met in London, and afterwards in Birmingham, in 1839. A collision with Victoria. the military took place in the latter city; and public meetings being forbidden by the authorities, alarming riots occurred in various parts of the Midlands. On June 14th, 1839, a monster petition, signed by one million two hundred and eighty thousand persons, was 4 monster presented to the House of Commons. The petition was temperately discussed, but a motion for referring it to a committee was lost by the overwhelming majority of 235 to 46. The more lawless members of the organisation now resorted to violence, and there were Chartist riots at Birmingham, Sheffield, Newcastle, and other places. A rising at Newport, in Monmouthshire, resulted in the death of ten persons and serious injury to a great many others. Three of the popular leaders-Frost, Williams, and Jones were tried and transported. In 1842 there were other food and labour riots in the North and in the Midlands, which were aided by the Chartists, though not directly originated by them. Another monster petition was presented to Parliament in 1842, but Mr. Duncombe's motion to allow counsel to be heard in support of it was rejected by 287 to 49. The French Revolution of 1848 revived the hopes of the Chartists. A great meeting was summoned for April 10th at Kennington Common, and it was resolved to carry a Chartist petition, purporting to bear the signatures of five million persons, to the very doors of the House of Commons. The Government took every precaution to guard the City and all the approaches to Westminster; while the Houses of Parliament were filled with police, and the streets protected by one hundred and seventy thousand special constables. The Chartist procession was forbidden, and the demonstration proved a failure. Not more than from thirty to fifty thousand persons assembled, instead of a hundred and fifty thousand. The leaders shrank from a conflict with the authorities, and a heavy rainstorm dispersed the Legislation under Queen CHAP. III. agitators. The petition, alleged as above to bear five million signatures, was examined by order of the House of Commons and found to contain only one million nine Victoria. hundred thousand signatures, though this was the largest number ever affixed to such a document. From this time the Chartist agitation rapidly died out; but it is noteworthy that several points of the charter, which were then held to be wild and revolutionary in the extreme, have since become the law of the land. Bribery Bribery at elections is a subject which has again and again occupied the attention of Parliament. Sudbury, long notorious for its corruption, was disfranchised in 1844, and St. Albans in 1852. Two of the four seats which thus became vacant were assigned to the West Riding of Yorkshire in 1861, and one each to Birkenhead and South Lancashire. The freemen of Great Yarmouth were disfranchised as a body by act of Parliament in 1848, and corrupt practices have been from time to time exposed at Warwick, Stafford, Ipswich, Hull, Barnstaple, Beverley, Nottingham, and other places. To remedy the evils of bribery various measures have been passed during the last fifty years. The act of 1841, introduced by Lord John Russell, extended the powers of election committees, and required them to receive evidence generally upon the charges of bribery, without previous investigation of agency. This measure facilitated the detection of bribery, though it often pressed heavily upon the sitting member. A further act passed in 1842 provided for the prosecution of investigations into bribery after an election committee had closed its inquiries, or where charges of bribery had been withdrawn. This measure proving ineffectual, a more stringent act was passed in 1852, which provided for the most searching inquiries into corrupt practices by commissioners appointed by the Crown on the address of the two Houses of Parliament. In 1854 a more general measure was carried, which made the offer or acceptance of a bribe a misdemeanour, punishable by fine, imprisonment, and forfeiture of franchise. It likewise restrained Legisla tion under Queen Victoria. Practices candidates from paying any election expenses except CHAP. III. through their authorised agents and the election auditor, and provided for the publication of accounts of all election expenses. An act passed in 1858 permitted the conveyance of voters to the poll, but forbade money to be given to the voters themselves for the purpose. In 1868 the jurisdiction in election petitions was given to the judges Election of the superior courts, with excellent results. The judge petitions. reports to the Speaker in each case, and the House takes the requisite action upon the report. The severest and most comprehensive statute against bribery is Sir Henry James's Corrupt Practices Act of 1883, which limits the Corrupt legal expenditure of the candidate and his agents to act. certain sum calculated on the number of electors, and visits with heavy penalties any authorised or unauthorised expenditure beyond this limit. Bribery may be committed before, during, or after the election, and may consist of promises to give refreshments, to pay travelling or vehicular expenses, or the offering of any valuable consideration to corrupt the mind of the elector. If it be proved that the candidate or any of his agents have been guilty of bribery, or that bribery, though not traced to any one, has taken place on a large scale, the election is void, and the guilty persons may be punished by imprisonment for one year, a fine of £200, or by electoral incapacity, and incapacity to be elected to Parliament or to any public office; the civil incapacity to last for seven years. Should bribery be brought home to the knowledge of the candidate, he may be declared incapable of ever again representing the particular constituency; and bribery by agents will exclude the candidate from that constituency for seven years. Bribery at municipal elections was dealt with by the Corrupt Practices (Municipal Elections) Act of 1884, which put the law on the same basis as that regulating Parliamentary elections. County The county franchise was made the subject of The numerous motions in Parliament. This question was Franfirst systematically taken up by Mr. Locke King. In chise. the session of 1851, his proposal for assimilating the |