"HOUSE OCCUPIERS DISQUALIFICATION (SCOTLAND), ACT 1878." (41st Victoriæ, cap. 5.) REMOVAL An Act to relieve certain Occupiers of Dwelling-houses in Scotland from being disqualified from the right of voting in the Election of Members to serve in Parliament by reason of their under-letting such Dwellinghouses for short terms. [18th March, 1878.] WHEREAS questions have arisen upon the occupation required by the third section of the Representation of the People (Scotland) Act, 1868: Be it therefore enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritnal and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows: I. This Act shall be cited for all purposes as "The House Occupiers Disqualification Removal (Scotland) Act, 1878." II. From and after the passing of this Act every man shall be entitled to be registered and to vote under the provisions of the said section notwithstanding that during a part of the qualifying period not exceeding four months in the whole he shall by letting or otherwise have permitted the qualifying premises to be occupied as a furnished house by some other person.* "PARLIAMENTARY AND MUNICIPAL REGISTRATION ACT, 1878." (41st and 42nd Victoria, cap. 26.) An Act to amend the Law relating to the Registration of Voters in Parliamentary Boroughs and the Enrolment of Burgesses in Municipal Boroughs, and relating to certain rights of voting and proceedings before and appeals from Revising Barristers. [22nd July, 1878.] BE it enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows: I. This Act may be cited as the Parliamentary and Municipal Registration Act, 1878. The Acts referred to in this Act by short titles may be cited for all purposes by those titles respectively. II. This Act shall not extend to Scotland or Ireland. 111. This Act shall come into operation on the first day of February, one thousand eight hundred and seventy-nine, which date is in this Act referred to as the commencement of this Act. IV. In this Act By Act 43rd and 44th Vict. c. 6, the same provision is made respecting houses in counties. The term "Reform Act, 1832," means the Act of the session of the The term " Municipal Corporation Acts" means the Municipal The term "Parliamentary borough" means any borough, city, The term "municipal borough means any place for the time being subject to the Municipal Corporation Acts: The term 66 parliamentary voter means a person entitled to be registered as a voter and when registered to vote at the election of a member or members to serve in Parliament for a parliamentary borough: The term "burgess" has the same meaning as in the Municipal The term "parish" means a place for which a separate poor rate Other terms used in this Act have the same meaning as in the V. In and for the purposes of the Reform Act, 1832, and the Municipal Corporation Acts the terms "house, warehouse, counting"house, shop, or other building," shall include any part of a house where that part is separately occupied for the purpose of any trade, business, or profession; and any such part may for the purpose of describing the qualification be described as "office " "chambers," "studio," or by any like term applicable to the case. In and for the purposes of the Representation of the People Act, 1867, the term “ dwelling-house shall include any part of a house where that part is separately occupied as a dwelling, and the term "lodgings" shall include any apartments or place of residence, whether furnished or unfurnished, in a dwelling place. For the purposes of any of the Acts referred to in this section, where an occupier is entitled to the sole and exclusive use of any part of a house, that part shall not be deemed to be occupied otherwise than separately by reason only that the occupier is entitled to the joint use of some other part. The interpretation contained in this section of dwelling house” shall be in substitution for the interpretation thereof contained in section sixty-one of the Representation of the People Act, 1867, but not so as to affect any of the other provisions of the said Act relating to rating. VI. (1.) Lodgings occupied by a person in any year or two successive years shall not be deemed to be different lodgings by reason only that in that year or in either of those years he has occupied some other rooms or place in addition to his original lodgings. (2.) For the purpose of qualifying a lodger to vote, the occupation in immediate succession of different lodgings of the requisite value in the same house shall have the same effect as continued occupation of the same lodgings. (3.) Where lodgings are jointly occupied by more than one lodger, and the clear yearly value of the lodgings if let unfurnished is of an amount which when divided by the number of the lodgers gives a sum of not less than ten pounds for each lodger, then each lodger, if otherwise qualified and subject to the conditions of the Representation of the People Act, 1867, shall be entitled to be registered, and when registered to vote as a lodger, provided that not more than two persons being such joint lodgers shall be entitled to be registered in respect of such joint lodgings. VII. In every parliamentary borough and in every municipal borough every period of qualification for parliamentary voters and burgesses respectively which is now computed by reference to the last day of July, shall, instead of being so computed, be computed by reference to the fifteenth day of July. The term "period of qualification" in this section shall include any period of occupation, residence, possession, receipt of rents and profits, and non-receipt of parochial relief or other alms. VIII. In every parliamentary borough and in every municipal borough the whole or part of the area whereof is co-extensive with or included in the area of a parliamentary borough, the forms in the schedule to this Act, or forms to the like effect, varied as circumstances require, shall be used for the purposes for which the same are applicable respectively, and shall for the purposes of the Parliamentary Registration Acts and this Act be deemed to be substituted for any corresponding forms in the schedules to the Parliamentary Registration Acts. The said schedule and the notes there to shall be construed and have effect as if enacted in the body of this Act. All precepts, instructions, proceedings, notices, and lists relating to the registration of parliamentary voters or enrolment of burgesses shall be expressed in such manner and form as may be necessary to carry the provisions of this act into effect. IX. In every parliamentary borough and in every municipal borough the whole or part of the area whereof is co-extensive with or included in the area of a parliamentary borough, any notice or list which is by the Parliamentary Registration Acts or this Act directed o be published by overseers shall be published by them not only in he manner directed by those Acts, but also by being affixed and kept in some public and conspicuous position in or near every post office and telegraph office occupied by or on behalf of Her Majesty's Postmaster General, and in or near every public or municipal or parochial office within the parish to which the list relates. All the provisions of those Acts with respect to the publication of notices or lists shall apply to the publication to be made under this section. X. Where the whole or part of the area of a municipal borough is co-extensive with or included in the area of a parliamentary borough, section eleven of the Parliamentary Registration Act, 1843, and section twenty-eight of the Representation of the People Act, 1867, (which relate to the notices to be published and given with respect to rates and taxes in arrear,) shall, as amended by this Act, extend with the necessary modifications to the rates of which the payment is required as a condition of enrolment on the burgess roll, and all the provisions of those sections as so amended shall apply to the overseers of parishes situate wholly or partly in a municipal borough accordingly. Any notice required to be given under this section shall be deemed to be duly given if delivered to the occupier or left at his last or usual place of abode, or with some person on the premises in respect of which the rate is payable. In case no such person can be found, then the notice required to be given under this section or under section twenty-eight of the Representation of the People Act, 1867, shall be deemed to be duly given if affixed upon some conspicuous part of the premises. Any overseer who with intent to keep an occupier off the list or register of voters for a parliamentary borough, or off the burgess lists or burgess roll of a municipal borough, shall wilfully withhold any notice required by this section to be given to such occupier, shall be deemed guilty of a breach of duty in the execution of this Act. Section twenty-nine of the Representation of the People Act, 1867, shall extend and be applicable to every parish situate wholly or partly within a municipal borough whose burgess lists are revised under this Act. XI. Every registrar of births and deaths whose sub-district includes the whole or part of any parliamentary borough or any municipal borough the whole or part of the area whereof is coextensive with or included in the area of a parliamentary borough, shall transmit by post or otherwise to the overseers of every parish the whole or any part of which is included in the parliamentary borough or municipal borough and also in his sub-district, a return certified under his hand to be a true return of the names, ages, and residences of all male persons of full age dying within that parish or part, and also when and as required by those overseers of the names, ages, and residences of all women of full age dying within that parish or part. The returns shall state the names of all such persons in full (where the names are known) and the dates of their deaths, and the names and residences of the persons by whom information of the deaths was given to the registrar. The returns shall be made four times a year; that is to say. On or before the seventh day of April for the three months ending with the preceding thirty first day of March; On or before the twenty-second day of July for the period beginning with the preceding first day of April and ending with the fifteenth day of July. On or before the fifteenth day of September, or at such other time before the completion of the revision of the lists of the parliamentary borough or municipal borough to the area of which the return relates as the barrister revising the same shall appoint in that behalf for the period beginning with the preceding sixteenth day of July, and ending with the time when such return is made, or as near thereto as practicable; And on or before the seventh day of January for the period beginning with the preceding fifteenth day of September or from the time for which the last preceding return was made, and ending with the thirty-first day of December: The registrar making any such return shall be entitled to fees at the rate specified in the twenty-eighth section of the Births and Deaths Registration Act, 1874, in respect of the returns therein mentioned, and such fees shall be paid by the overseers as part of the expenses of carrying into effect the provisions of this Act with respect to the lists of parliamentary voters and burgess lists. The overseers shall omit from any list made by them the name of any person who appears from such returns to be dead, and shall allow any person who is registered as a parliamentary voter of the parliamentary borough or enrolled as a burgess of the municipal borough to which the returns relate to inspect any such returns in their custody at all reasonable times free of charge. XII. The overseers of every parish situate wholly or partly either in a parliamentary borough or in a municipal borough the whole or part of the area whereof is co-extensive with or included in the area of a parliamentary borough, shall ascertain from the relieving officer acting for that parish the names of all persons who are disqualified for being inserted in the lists of parliamentary voters or burgess lists for that parish by reason of having received parochial relief, and the relieving officer, upon application from the overseers, shall produce to them at such place, within the parish, and at such time as is required by them, the books in his possession containing the names of those persons. XIII. In every parish situate wholly or partly either in a parliamentary borough or in a municipal borough the whole or part of the area whereof is co-extensive with or included in the area of a parliamentary borough, the books containing the poor rates made for the parish within the previous two years shall at all reasonable times be open, free of charge, to the inspection of any person who is registered as a parliamentary voter for the parliamentary borough, or enrolled as a burgess of the municipal borough, and any such voter or burgess may make any copy thereof or take any extract therefrom. XIV. Whereas by section nineteen of the Poor Rate Assessment |