Voters and their Registration. By John James Heath Saint, Barrister-at-Law.
(Butterworths.)—This book is-mainly a reprint of the Reform Act of 1884, and the Registration, Redistribution, and Medical Relief Disqualification Renewal Acts of this year. Its use- fulness is considerably marred by the fact that "it does not profess to give the law of the Franchise and Registration in its entirety ;" and it certainly does nothing of the kind. It is not in any way com- plete in itself. For instance, Mr. Saint prints the aeration of the Registration Act which gives the county authority,—i.e., the Justices of the Peace,—power to divide their county into polling districts, and assign polling stations, "in such manner as shall make the districts conform with the enactments relating to the division of counties and boroughs into polling districts ;" yet, though the book professes to annotate and explain the Acts, we are not informed what distances the polling places must be apart from each other, or who are the electors, nor even giver, the reference to the Acts which contain this information. Nor is the slightest assistance given by the notes towards the deter- mination of any of the vexed questions obviously arising on the new Acts; not a hint that the question of the franchise of shop-assistants living on shop premises, undergraduates in colleges, soldiers in barracks, is open to doubt. The overseer or the registration agent would find copies of the Acts themselves quite as useful as guides through the intricacies of registration law as this book.
Previous page
