CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



parliament was convened to supply the king with 

 money, and while it kept him in suspense, it some- 

 times prepared a petition against grievances, to 

 which a needy monarch found it prudent to accede. 

 It became a practice for the judges, at the end of 

 a session of parliament, to convert the substance 

 of the 'petitions,' or 'bills,' which had been 

 acceded to by the king, into acts. This practice 

 was dangerous, the judges having the power, 

 when parliament had ceased to sit, of altering 

 the intended provisions. To remedy this, the 



Elan now followed was adopted, of making the 

 ill contain the exact words which it was intended 

 should constitute the act Singularly enough, 

 the bill is still in the form of a petition, and 

 when made an act, the only alteration is, that 

 the words ' May it therefore please your Majesty' 

 are struck out 



A bill may be introduced either in the House of 

 Commons or in the House of Lords. It is a rule 

 that all bills affecting personal status such as 

 bills of attainder for treason, bills for naturalising 

 foreigners, bills for divorce, until the establishment 

 of a Divorce Court by 20 and 21 Viet. c. 85, &c. 

 make their first appearance in the House of Lords. 

 The Commons possess the more substantial privi- 

 lege of originating all bills of supply, or for the 

 levying and appropriation of taxes. The privilege 

 is jealously guarded, and it is usual, should the 

 House of Lords amend such a measure, for the 

 House of Commons to refuse to take it into con- 

 sideration again, and to authorise their Speaker 

 to throw it over the table. All measures involving 

 taxation originate in what is called ' a committee 

 of supply,' in which the house is presumed to be 

 sitting, not to debate great questions, but simply 

 to transact pecuniary business. In the case of 

 the introduction of any ordinary bill, amending 

 the law, into the House of Commons, the first 

 stage is, to obtain leave from the house to ' bring 

 it in.' In the House of Lords, a member may 

 move a bill without previously obtaining leave. On 

 a bill being brought in, the next step is the first 

 reading. A member moves that it be read a first 

 time. If there t>e a party in the house strenuously 

 opposed to the principle of the measure, it may 

 be opposed in this stage, and a debate and division 

 will of course ensue. Objections to the details 

 are reserved for a future opportunity. 



The next and principal ordeal is the second 

 reading, after which the bill is referred to a 

 committee of the whole house. In this com- 

 mittee, as in a committee of supply, the body 

 is the same in every respect as that which con- 

 stitutes the House of Commons, but the mem- 

 bers are considered as having assembled, not to 

 debate general questions, but to enter on a 

 business-like examination of the various clauses 

 of the measure. When the committee have ex- 

 amined all the clauses, they report to the house. 

 It is then moved that the bill be read a third 

 time. This stage is, in disputed measures, gen- 

 erally the last trial of party strength. If the 

 third reading is carried, there is still another 

 motion, to the effect ' that the bill do pass,' but 

 this motion is seldom opposed. On the bill pass- 

 ing one house, it is conveyed to the other, where 

 it has to pass through the same succession of read- 

 ings. When amendments are made on a bill 

 after it has passed through one of the houses, in 

 that to which it is then sent, it must be re-trans- 



mitted to the house where it first passed. That 

 house may accede to the amendments, and so let 

 the bill pass ; or it may reject the whole measure 

 in consequence of them ; or it may, adhering to- 

 ils first opinions, hold a conference with the other 

 house, with a view to a settlement of differences. 

 When a bill has passed both houses, its next step 

 is the royal assent, which may be given either by 

 the sovereign personally or by commission. 



A bill that has received the royal assent be- 

 comes a law, the operation of which commences, 

 when the consent is adhibited, unless another 

 point of time be stated in the act. All the stat- 

 utes of a session are ranked in order, according 

 to the date at which they have received the royal 

 assent; and the whole set are distinguished 

 from others by the year of the reign in which 

 they have been passed. Technically, the whole 

 legislation of a session is called one act, and each 

 statute or act, according to the common acceptation 

 of the term, a chapter of it In the printed edition 

 of the statutes, each chapter is divided into sections, 

 but in the original copy of the act there is no such 

 division the whole is a continuous manuscript 

 without break. Nor is the division into chapters 

 even authoritative. The consequence is, that when 

 a new act is passed, making alteration on some 

 part of a previous one, instead of specifying the 

 chapter and section that is altered, it describes 

 the act vaguely, as an act passed in such a session, 

 for such a purpose. Thus, in 1839, an act was 

 passed to alter a section of the Patents Act, passed 

 in 1837. For any ordinary purpose, this would 

 have been called an act to amend the seventh 

 section of the act 5 and 6 William IV. chapter 83 ; 

 but as there are no such things as chapters and 

 sections known in law, the legislature could only 

 give a roundabout description, thus ' An act to 

 amend an act of the fifth and sixth years of the 

 reign of his late Majesty William IV. intituled an 

 act to amend the law touching letters-patent for 

 inventions.' Sometimes there is a series of acts, 

 the latter ones amending those that have pre- 

 ceded them, so that the titles are involved in 



| confusion. Even where the acts are divided 

 into sections, as they are by the printers, it 



! is found difficult for lawyers to unravel their 

 meaning, and to unprofessional people they are 



| often a sealed book. A section generally con- 

 sists of but one sentence ; and as it has often 

 to give a long narrative of things that must be 

 done, independently of circumstances, and others 

 that must be done in particular cases, and others 

 that may be done, but are not imperative, and 

 others that must not be done, &c. the compre- 

 hension of the full meaning of the sentence re- 

 quires a strong mental effort. 



There are some acts which are passed every 

 session in the same terms, such as the Mutiny 

 Act, the indemnity for neglecting to take the 

 oaths, &c. Independently of these, the statutes 

 now passed in a single year are often over 100 in 

 number, and generally fill a quarto volume of 

 about 500 pages, very closely printed. Besides 

 these acts, which generally either apply to the 

 whole empire, or to some one of the great national 

 divisions of it, there are annually passed several 

 folio volumes of statutes called 'Public Local Acts/ 

 consisting of the police acts of the various towns, 

 and acts for the construction and management 



r of harbours, turnpike roads, bridges, gas-works, 



