COMMONS, HOUSE OF. 



COMMUNION. 



formerly required. By the act 21 Viet, c. 28, passed on the 28th of 

 June, 1858, all the act* requiring any property qualification in 

 member* of parliament were altogether repealed. 



/rainy of Writ* for a Gtiurat Btttio* ; EtrcttoH Prottttlit>gt 

 and Rtlonu. 



An essential and very important part of the representative machinery 

 is that which regard* the due transmission from the central to the 

 local authority of the summons to elect, the superintendence of the 

 election proceeding*, and the due return from the local to the central 

 authority of the uunet of the individual* chosen. When the Lord 

 Chancellor, the highest officer of state, hai received the written com- 

 mand of the sovereign in council for the summoning of a new par- 

 liament, he thereupon rmU hi warrant or order to the highest 

 ministerial officer acting under him, the clerk of the crown in chan- 

 cery, to prepare and issue the trriti, or written authorities for that 

 purpose, to the several sherifi, whether of counties at large or of 

 counties corporate. 



In the early periods of our history, when the shire-mote*, or county 

 oourts, were held regularly once a month, and the borough court* 

 once a week or once a fortnight, there was no need to incur the trouble 

 and inconvenience of a special meeting of the members of those courts, 

 that is, of the freeholders in the former case and the burgesses in the 

 Utter to elect the parliamentary representatives ; and accordingly the 

 sheriff was simply required to cause the election of the county members 

 at the next county court, held in the regular course, or at an adjourned 

 meeting of that court, in cose such adjournment were necessary in 

 order to allow time for giving due notice of the election. It was not 

 until the importance of the county courts declined, that a different 

 arrangement became necessary ; nor was it until the 25th of George 

 III., that it was enacted that the sheriff, on receipt of the writ, should 

 call a iptcial county court for the purpose of the election. 



The writ, thus addressed under the great seal to the sheriff of a 

 county at large, requires him not only to cause the election of the 

 county representatives, but also of those of each city and borough 

 within his jurisdiction. And accordingly, on receiving this command, 

 he issues a prtttpl under his own seal to the head of each municipality 

 enjoying the elective franchise, which precept is to be returned to him 

 within a limited time, together with the name of the person or persons 

 chosen;* in like manner as he himself is bound to return, before a 

 certain day previous to that on which the parliament is summoned to 

 assemble, to the clerk of the crown, from whom he received it, the 

 writ, with the names of the persons chosen, whether as county or as 

 oorough members. Such, in brief, as regards the returning-officers 

 and responsible conductors of elections, has been the system from the 

 commencement of the general representation. 



In the parliamentary boroughs whicli hod already a municipal or 

 other chief civil officer or officers in whom this function could be appro- 

 priately vested, it is so entrusted by the Reform Act. As regards the 

 others, it U provided, that the sheriff of the respective counties shall, 

 in the month of March in each year, by writing under his hand, to be 

 delivered to the clerk of the peace for that county, within a week from 

 its date, and be by him filed with the records of his office, appoint for 

 each of such boroughs a fit person resident therein to be the returning- 

 officer until the nomination to be made in the March following. In 

 case of such person's death or incapacity from sickness or any other 

 sufficient impediment, the sheriff, on notice thereof, is forthwith to 

 appoint in his stead a fit person, resident as aforesaid, to be the 

 returning-office for the remainder of the year. No person so nominated 

 as returning-officer shall, after the expiration of his office, be com- 

 pellable thereafter to serve again in the same office. Neither shall any 

 person in holy orders, nor any churchwarden or overseer of the poor, 

 be so appointed ; nor shall any person so nominated be appointed a 

 churchwarden or overseer during the time he shall be such returning- 

 officer. Any person qualified to serve in parliament is exempted from 

 such nomination as a returning-officer, if within one week after his 

 receiving notice of such appointment he make oath of his qualification 

 before any justice, and forthwith notify the same to the sheriff. In 

 accordance, however, with all previous usage, it is provided that " in 

 case his majesty shall be pleased to grant his royal charter of incorpo- 

 ration to any of the said boroughs named in the schedules of the Reform 

 Act, which are not incorporated, and shall by such charter give power 

 to elect a mayor or other chief municipal officer for any such borough, 

 then and in every such case such mayor or other chief minm-ipa] 

 officer for the time being shall be the only returning-officer for such 

 borough ; and the provisions hereinbefore contained with regard to the 

 nomination and appointment of a returning-officer for such borough 

 hall thenceforth cease and determine.'' 



The division of both counties and boroughs into convenient polling- 

 districts, the shortening of the time of polling in contested elections, 

 from the old period of fifteen days to one day iu Knglaml, Wales, and 

 Scotland, and to five in Ireland, the restriction of inquiry nt the poll 

 into the elector's right to the ascertaining the identity of name and 

 qualification with those contained in the register of voters (thus 

 " hing the old tediously litigious practice of election scrutinies), 



qualifies 



. .. 



In the univenitiei, the vice-chancellor, u returning officer, receives and 

 retunu the iberUTi precept of election. 



and the limitation of the necessary expense of election proceedings, 

 borne by the candidates or their proposers, are among the more im- 

 portant of the recent improvement*. 



Having thus given, we believe, a tolerably just though M 

 view of the history and present state of the representative system of 

 the British empire, so far as it can be distinctly shown without con- 

 tinual reference to the other branches of the legislature, we r. : 

 an account of the organisation and operation of the Commons, " in par- 

 liament assembled," to a subsequent volume of this work. fPAKLiA- 

 MI NT, IMPERIAL.] There too may be the fit occasion for offering some 

 indications of the future changes in the relative position of the House 

 !" ( '.unmons as a branch of the legislature, to which the alterations in 

 it* internal constitution commenced in 18S2 must eventually lead. A 

 word as to the progress of this internal revolution itself must conclude 

 Tin- |.i. -. ],! BOM I. 



We have seen how the popular representation arose, first as a con- 

 venient, then as a necessary appendage to the feudal parliament of the 

 Anglo-Normans. We have seen how, as early at least as the parlia- 

 mentary settlement of the crown upon the house of Lancaster, that 

 popular representation, under the title of the House of Commons, had 

 become an effective, integral, independent, and solemnly recognised 

 branch of the legislature. We have traced, from that period down- 

 wards, the twofold operation, of the crown in undermining this equal 

 and sometimes preponderating independence of the Commons' House, 

 and of that House itself in contracting the limits and abridging the 

 rights of the constituent bodies, until the original constitution of tin- 

 representative body itself was absolutely subverted. And lost of all 

 we have seen that which, in the present day, it is most interesting to 

 consider, the re-action of an enlarged and enlightened public opinion 

 on the legal constitution of the house. In on historical view it is 

 far less important to examine the merits of the measures of repre- 

 sentative amelioration in detail, than to mark the maturity of a new 

 political element which they indicate, and the new line of constitutional 

 progression which they commenced. No matter that the I: 

 Acts, as they are called, mode but a compromise with the exceed- 

 ing corruptions and anomalies of the old system, am! 

 tli. -in untouched ; no matter that the Commons' House, which in the 

 i its pristine vigour was democratic in the fullest sense of the 

 term, is still, though somewhat popularised by the recent changes, a 

 highly aristocratic body : we do not the lss find in these changes a 

 successful effort of the national intelligence and will, not so much to 

 replace the legislative representation on the basis on which it stood at 

 the close of the 14th century, and which, from the causes we have 

 previously stated, was fixed without any scientific or symmetrical 

 proportioning even of the number of representatives to that of consti- 

 tuents, but to mould it into some shape more accordant with the 

 present advanced state of general information in the great body of the 

 people ; to render it, in short, a popular representation in fact OB well 

 as in name. 



COMMONS, IRISH HOUSE OF. [PARLIAMENT OF IRELAND.] 



COMMONS, DOCTORS'. POCTORS' COMMONS.] 



COMMUNION (the Latin rommuuio, the Ureek Koivuvla, l-n!6nia) 

 is used to designate the uniformity of belief by which a number of 

 persons are united in one denomination or church, as the Roman 

 Catholic, Anglican, or Lutheran communion. Comm<n,iu is employed 

 repeatedly in this sense in the canons of the Council of Elvira (Illiberi- 

 tanum) A.D. 313. For the examination and comparison of scriptural 

 passages, containing the words Kairuvia and KOOHHH'II/, the Greek Con- 

 cordances of the New Testament may be consulted. 



Communion is used more especially for the common or public act of 

 sharing or participating in the sacrament, eucharist, or Lord's SupjH-r. 

 Of the origin and use of the word communion in this sense on account 

 U given by Cosaubon, ' Exercitat.' 16, 30. During the first three 

 centuries the communion was celebrated every Sunday. (Biughom's 

 ' Origines Ecclesiastic^,' vol. v. c. 9.) It was subsequent ly administered 

 only three times in the year, namely, at Easter, Whitsunti<i< 

 Christmas. By the general council of Lateran, in 1215, it was decreed, 

 in order to check the apjKirent inclination in many to neglect it entirely, 

 that every one should at least communicate at Easter, that is, once a 

 year. This injunetioii was afterwards renewed by the coum-il of Tivnt. 

 For an ample account of the ancient communion service, ' Missu l-'i.l.-- 

 liiim.' as well as of the ante-communion service ' Missa (.' >:<vlimu<<- 

 we refer to Binghain, vol. v. cc. 1 to 9. There was one f..nn 

 for tlie clergy, a second for the laity (vol. vi. cc. 2 and 8), and a third 

 and lowest form for strangers or foreigners. Degradation of the clergy 

 to the lay form of communicating in one kind, that is, with broad and 

 no wine, appears to have been an ancient mode of canonical punish- 

 (' Apost. Can.' c. 14.) The bread appears never to have been 

 omitted : the difference between communicating under one or two 

 species or kinds, as it is termed, being solely in the omission or inclu- 

 sion of the wine. The communion in two kinds seems to have con- 

 tinued in the Latin church until the end of the llth century ; for in 

 1099 Pope Paschal II. decreed that little children only should omit 

 the wine, and that the wine alone should be given to those v. ho, tY.mi 

 extreme illness, could not swallow the bread. Aft>r tlii^ |ri'l tin- 

 custom began to prevail of taking the wine by sopping it into the bread 

 instead of drinking it out of the chalice. A letter by Kimilphu^, 

 bishop of Rochester, who died in 1124, commends thin expedient for 





