election, on account of or in respect of such election, otherwise than through an agent or agents whose name and address or names and addresses have been declared in writing to the returning officer on or before the day of nomination, or through an agent or agents to be appointed in his or their place as herein provided; and any person making any such payment, advance, loan, or deposit, otherwise than through such agent or agents, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, or, in Scotland of an offence punishable by fine and imprisonment. It shall be the duty of the returning officer to publish, on or before the day of nomination, the name and address or the names and addresses of the agent or agents appointed in pursuance of this section.

In the event of the death or legal incapacity of any agent appointed in pursuance of this section, the candidate shall forthwith appoint another agent in his place on giving notice to the returning officer of the name and address of the person so appointed, which shall be forthwith published by the returning officer.

III. All persons who have any bills, charges, or claims upon any candidate for or in respect of any election shall send in such bills, charges, or claims, within one month from the day of the declaration of the election to such agent or agents as aforesaid, otherwise such persons shall be barred of their right to recover such claims and every or any part thereof: provided always, that in case of the death within the said month of any person claiming the amount of such bill, charge, or claim, the legal representative of such person shall send in such bill, charge, or claim within one month after obtaining probate or letters of administration, or confirmation as executor, as the case may be, or the right to recover such claim shall be barred as aforesaid : provided also that such bills, charges, and claims shall and may be sent in and delivered to the candidate, if, and so long as, during the said month, there shall, owing to death or legal incapacity, be no such agent.

IV. A detailed statement of all election expenses incurred by or on behalf of any candidate, including such excepted payments as aforesaid, shall, within two months after the election, (or in cases where by reason of the death of the creditor no bill has been sent in within such period of two months, then within one month after such bill has been sent in,) be made out and signed by the agent or, if there be more than one, by every agent who has paid the same (including the candidate in case of payments made by him), and delivered, with the bills and vouchers relative thereto, to the returning officer, and the returning officer for the time being shall, at the expense of the candidate, within fourteen days, insert or cause to be inserted, an abstract of such statement, with the signature of the agent thereto, in some newspaper published or circulating in the county or place where the election was held; and any agent or candidate who makes default in delivering to the returning officer the statement required by this section shall incur a penalty not exceeding five pounds for every day during which he so makes default; and any agent or candidate who wilfully furnishes to the said returning officer an untrue statement shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, or in Scotland of an offence punishable by fine and imprisonment; and the said returning officer shall preserve all such bills and vouchers, and during six months after they have been delivered to him permit any voter to inspect the same, on payment of a fee of one shilling.

Legal Proceedings.

V. The provisions of the fourteenth section of "The Corrupt "Practices Prevention Act, 1854," shall extend to a misdemeanor or to any other offence under the Corrupt Practices Prevention Acts not punishable by a penalty or forfeiture, as well as to proceedings for any offence punishable by a penalty or forfeiture.

VI. In any indictment or information for bribery or undue influence, and in any action or proceeding for any penalty for bribery, treating, or undue influence, it shall be sufficient to allege that the defendant was at the election at or in connexion with which the offence is intended to be alleged to have been committed guilty of bribery, treating, or undue influence (as the case may require); and in any criminal or civil proceedings in relation to any such offence the certificate of the returning officer in this behalf shall be sufficient evidence of the due holding of the election, and of any person therein named having been a candidate thereat.

VII. No person who is called as a witness before any election committee, or any commissioners appointed in pursuance of the Act of the session holden in the fifteenth and sixteenth years of the reign of Her present Majesty, chapter fifty-seven, shall be excused from answering any question relating to any corrupt practice at, or connected with, any election forming the subject of inquiry by such committee or commissioners, on the ground that the answer thereto may criminate or tend to criminate himself: Provided always, that where any witness shall answer every question relating to the matters aforesaid which he shall be required by such committee or commissioners (as the case may be) to answer, and the answer to which may criminate, or tend to criminate him, he shall be entitled to receive from the committee, under the hand of their clerk, or from the commissioners, under their hands (as the case may be), a certificate stating that such witness was, upon his examination, required by the said committee or commissioners to answer questions or a question relating to the matters aforesaid, the answers or answer to which criminated or tended to criminate him, and had answered all such questions or such question; and if any information, indictment, or action be at any time thereafter pending in any court against such witness for any offence under the Corrupt Practices Prevention Acts, or for which he might have been prosecuted or proceeded against under such acts, committed by him previously to the time of his giving his evidence, and at or in relation to the election concerning or in relation to which the witness may have been so examined, the court shall, on production and proof of such certificate, stay the proceedings in such last-mentioned information, indictment, or action, and may, at its discretion, award to such witness such costs as he may have been put to in such information, indictment, or action: Provided that no statement made by any person in answer to any question put by or before such election committee or commissioners shall, except in cases of indictments for perjury, be admissible in evidence in any proceeding, civil or criminal.

Election Committees.

VIII. The following regulations shall be made with respect to the proceedings of select committees appointed to try election petitions :

1. On any charge of treating being brought before any election committee, it shall not be necessary, unless the committee should otherwise decide, to prove agency in the first instance before giving in evidence the facts whereby the charge of treating is to be sustained:

2. Where any person who has voted at any election is found by any committee to have been guilty of bribery or treating at such election, his vote shall be void, and may, upon a scrutiny, be struck off the list of voters, notwithstanding that the name of such guilty person has not been included in the list of voters to be objected to: 3. Where any election petition complains that bribery, treating, or other corrupt practices have been committed at any election, the committee to whose determination such petition is referred shall report to the House of Commons whether or not corrupt practices have, or whether there is reason to believe corrupt practices have, extensively prevailed at such election in the place to which the petition refers.

IX. Where an election committee has reported to the House of Commons that certain persons named by them have been guilty of bribery or treating, and where it appears by the report of any commission of inquiry into corrupt practices at any election made to Her Majesty and laid before Parliament that certain persons named by them have been guilty of the offences of bribery or treating, and have not been furnished by them with certificates of indemnity, such report, with the evidence taken by the commission, shall be laid before the Attorney General, with a view to his instituting a prosecution against such persons if the evidence should, in his opinion, be sufficient to support a prosecution.

Repeal.

X. There shall be repealed the several Acts of Parliament mentioned in the Schedule hereto to the extent specified in the third column of the said Schedule, but such repeal shall not affect the punishment of any offence or the recovery of any penalty or forfeiture incurred under any of the provisions hereby repealed.

XI. The Corrupt Practices Prevention Acts shall continue in force for a period of five years from the date of the passing of this Act, and from thenceforth until the end of the then next session of Parliament. The Schedule. Extent of Repeal.

15th and 16th Vic., cap 57.

A.D. 1852. Sections 9 and 10. 17th and 18th Vic., cap. 102. A.D. 1854. Sections 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, and 34.

21st and 22nd Vic., cap. 87. A.D. 1858. So much of Section (1) as provides that a full, true, and particular account of all payments made for such conveyance, signed by the candidate or his agents, shall be delivered to the election auditor, with the names and addresses of the persons to whom such payments have been made, and the amount of such account shall be included in the general account of the expenses incurred at any election to be made out and kept by such election auditor. Also Sections 2, 4.

VOTING PAPERS AT UNIVERSITY ELECTIONS.

An Act to provide that Votes at Elections for the Universities may be recorded by means of Voting Papers, 24 & 25 Vic. cap. 53.

[1st August, 1861.]

1. It shall be lawful for such Electors, in lieu of attending to vote in person, to nominate any other elector or electors of the same University, competent to make the declaration hereinafter mentioned, to deliver for them at the poll voting papers containing their votes, as by this Act provided. Every such voting paper shall bear date subsequently to notice given by the returning officer of the day for proceeding to election, and shall contain the name or names of the candidate or candidates thereby voted for, and the name or names of the elector or electors authorised on behalf of the voter to tender such voting paper at the poll, and shall be according to the form or to the effect prescribed in the schedule to this Act annexed. Such voting paper, the aforesaid date and names being previously filled in, shall, on any day subsequent to notice given by the returning officer of the day for proceeding to election, be signed by the voter in the presence of a Justice of the Peace for the county or borough in which such voter shall be then residing; and the said Justice shall certify and attest the fact of such voting paper having been so signed in his presence, by signing at the foot thereof a certificate of attestation in the form or to the effect prescribed in the said schedule, with his name and address in full, and shall state his quality as a Justice of the Peace for such county or borough.

2. The voting paper, signed and certified as aforesaid, may be delivered to the Vice Chancellor of the University for which the election is held, or to any Pro Vice Chancellor appointed by him, or, in the case of the University of Dublin, to the Provost of Trinity College, or to any person lawfully deputed to act for him, at any one of the appointed polling places, during the appointed hours of polling, by any one of the persons therein nominated in that behalf, who shall, on tendering such voting paper at the poll, read out the same; and the said Vice Chancellor, Pro Vice Chancellor, Provost, or Deputy shall receive the voting papers as the same shall be delivered, and shall cause the votes thereby given, or such of them as may not appear to be contrary to the provisions of this Act, to be recorded in the manner heretofore used, in all respects as if such votes had been given by the electors attending in person; and all votes so recorded shall have the same validity and effect as if they had been duly given by the voters in person: Provided always, that no person shall be entitled to sign or vote by more than one voting paper at any election, and that no voting paper containing the names of more candidates than there are Burgesses to be elected at such election shall be received or recorded; Provided also, that no voting paper shall be received or recorded unless the person tendering the same shall make the following declaration, which he shall sign at the foot or back thereof:

"I solemnly declare, that I am personally acquainted with A.B. [the "voter], and I verily believe that this is the paper by which he intends to vote pursuant to the provisions of the Universities Elections Act."

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Provided also, that no voting paper shall be so received and recorded if the voter signing the same shall have already voted in person at the same election: Provided also, that every such elector shall be entitled to vote in person, notwithstanding that he has duly signed and transmitted a voting paper to another elector, if such voting paper has not been already tendered at the poll.

3. It shall be lawful for any person now by law or custom authorised on behalf of any candidate to object to votes to inspect any voting paper tendered at the poll before the same shall be received or recorded, and to object to it on one or more of the following grounds:

1. That the person on whose behalf the voting paper is tendered is not qualified to vote:

2.

3.

4.

That the person tendering the voting paper is not duly qualified in that behalf:

That the person in whose behalf the voting paper is tendered has already voted at that election in person or by voting paper: That the voting paper bears date anterior to notice given by the returning officer of the day for proceeding to election:

5. That the voting paper is forged or falsified:

And the returning officer, his deputy or assessor, or any officer having by law or custom power to decide objections in respect of votes tendered by voters attending the poll in person, shall have power to put questions to the person tendering such voting paper, and to reject, receive, and record, or receive and record as objected to or protested against, any votes tendered by voting papers: Provided, that in case the objection offered to any voting paper shall be that it is forged or falsified, such returning or other officer shall receive and record such voting paper, having previously written upon it, " · Objected to as forged," or Objected to as falsified," together with the name of the person making such objection.

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4. All voting papers received and recorded at such election, as well as any voting papers rejected for informality or on any other ground, shall be filed and kept by the officer entrusted with the care of the poll books or other documents relating to the said election; and any person shall be allowed to examine such voting papers at all reasonable times, and to take copies thereof, upon payment of a fee of one shilling.

5. Any person falsely or fraudulently signing any voting paper in the name of any other person, either as a voter or as a witness, whether such other person shall be living or dead, and every person signing, subscribing, endorsing, attesting, certifying, tendering, or transmitting as genuine any false or falsified voting paper, knowing the same to be false or falsified, and any person falsely making any such declaration as aforesaid, or such declaration as is contained in the schedule, or with fraudulent intent altering, defacing, destroying, withholding, or abstracting any voting paper, and any person wilfully making a false answer to any question put to him by the returning or other officer as herein before provided, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and punishable by fine, or imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year.

6. No such voting paper as hereinbefore mentioned shall be liable to any stamp duty.