Warrant for taking depositions, how ob tained. Commitment. Divorce bills to a committee ceeded upon in a subsequent session, or in a subsequent F liament, in either house of Parliament, in like manner, to all intents and purposes, as they might have been iz course of one and the same session."1 When a petitioner prays that evidence may be take India by virtue of this act, his petition is referred to a mittee, upon whose report the orders are made for issuing necessary warrants, and the bill is read a first time. further proceeding can then take place until the depos have been returned from India; and, unless they are rece in time to proceed while Parliament is sitting, the bill. read a second time until the following session. If the ceedings of ecclesiastical and other courts have been laid bek the house, upon a divorce bill, in the preceding session agent may petition the house to dispense with a second e All the ordinary personal bills are referred to ar committee, consisting, as already explained, of the lords present; who inquire whether all the Standing Order plicable to such bills have been complied with, and take that the proper provisions are inserted. Unlike other private bills, divorce bills, instead of of the whole committed to an open committee, or to a selected com are committed, like public bills, to a committee of the house. house. Report. Third reading, &c. Lords' private bills in the Commons. Referred to examiners. T When a private bill is reported from a committee. any amendments that may have been made are agre by the house, the bill is ordered to be read a third tim future day, when it is read a third time, passed, and s the House of Commons, in the usual form. The bills sent down to the Commons pass through same stages, and are subject to nearly the same rules, as private bills, except that name bills need not be printed The bills when received from the Lords and provs order bills are read a first time, and, unless they be na divorce bills, are referred to the examiners of petitions rivate bills. Two clear days' notice is given of the exnination of every such bill, and memorials complaining of on-compliance with the Standing Orders may be deposited efore twelve o'clock on the day preceding that appointed by le examiner. If the examiner report that the Standing rders have been complied with, or that no Standing Orders e applicable, the bills are read a second time. Not less an three clear days, nor more than seven, are required to apse between the first and second reading, unless the bill as been referred to the examiners, in which case it is not to be ad a second time later than seven clear days after his report, mitment. intervals. ⚫ that of the Standing Orders Committee. Three clear days' Second readotice of the second reading is to be given, but not until the ing and comay after the first reading. After the second reading, every ich bill, except a divorce bill, is referred to the committee selection, by whom it is committed to the chairman of ays and means and two other members, of whom one at ast is not to be locally or otherwise interested in the bill, or he member and a referee. There must be three clear days Notices and etween the second reading of a name or ordinary estate bill nd the sitting of the committee, and six clear days if the tate bill relate to crown, church, or corporation property, property held in trust for public or charitable purposes. ne clear day's notice is given, by the clerk to the committee i selection, of the sitting of the committee. Amendments re rarely made to such bills, after they have been received om the Lords; and on being reported from the committee ey are, therefore, ordered to be read a third time. One ear day's notice of such third reading is to be given, but ot until the day after the bill has been ordered to be read a ird time. Many of these bills, however, are received by the ommons at so late a period of the session, that it becomes pended. ecessary to suspend the Standing Orders, and to permit em to proceed without the usual intervals and notices. All that need be said of divorce bills in the Commons, Divorce bills that at the commencement of each session a committee is Standing Orders sus in the Com mons. Fees remitted. nominated, consisting of nine members, of whom three a quorum, and is denominated "The select committee divorce bills." To this committee all divorce bills are c mitted after the second reading. There are several cr applicable to such bills, which need not be enumerated. In the case of Chippendall's divorce bill, in 1830 | committee made a special report, recommending the rem of the fees on account of the poverty of the promoter:= Death of peti- their report was agreed to by the house. On the 13th, 1854, Berens' divorce bill had been read a third time passed, when intelligence was received of the death of Berens, the husband and petitioner for the bill. On the lowing day the proceedings upon the third reading! ordered to be null and void. Another day was name the third reading, but the bill was subsequently allowe drop. tioner for bill. Divisions of private bills. 1. Local and personal acts. All private bills, during their progress in the Con are known by the general denomination of private bills: in the Lords the several bills, which are divided into the and second class, are now distinguished in the StarOrders as local bills; and estate, divorce, naturali name, and other bills not specified as local bills, are ter personal bills. After they have received the royal private bills are divided into three classes: 1. Local ar sonal, declared public; 2. Private, printed by the Q printers; and 3. Private, not printed. 1. Every local and personal act passed before the 1105 Com. J. 563; and see infra, p. 842. has consequently been omitted from all local and personal Facts since that time. Acts of this class receive the royal Lassent in the form of public acts. The practice of declaring particular acts of a private nature to be "public acts," commenced in the reign of William and Mary, and was soon extended to nearly all private acts, by which felonies were reated, penalties inflicted, or tolls imposed. Such acts were printed with the other statutes of the year,2 and were not listinguishable from public acts, except by the character of heir enactments: but since 1798 they have been printed in separate collection, and are known as local and personal icts. With the exception of inclosure, or inclosure and lrainage acts, all the bills of the two classes so often referred o are included in this category, and have contained the public lause. In some special cases where local and personal acts have been of an unusually public character, they have not only contained the ordinary public clause, but have been printed amongst the public general acts. a local cha In 1867-78, a considerable class of acts previously included Public acts of n the collection of the public general acts, were transferred racter. o the local and personal acts. These were acts for the conirmation of provisional orders, and for various local purposes. This change was introduced with a view to reduce the inconvenient bulk of the statute book, and has been carried out as far as circumstances will admit. 2. From 1798 to 1815, the private acts, not declared 2. Private acts printed. public, were not printed by the Queen's printers, and could only be given in evidence by obtaining authenticated copies from the statute rolls in the Parliament Office: but since 1815, the greater part of the private acts have been printed by the Queen's printers, and have contained a clause delaring that a copy so printed "shall be admitted as evidence. 1 Preface to Spiller's Index to the Statutes. 2 In the black letter edition of the public general acts. 3 Manchester Stipendiary Magistrate Acts, 53 Geo. III. c. 72; 7 & 8 Vict. c. 30. Manchester Warehousing Act, 7 & 8 Vict. c. 31. 3. Private acts not printed. Legal distinctions. Queen's printers' copies. thereof by all judges, justices, and others." These cors almost exclusively, of inclosure, or inclosure and drainag and estate acts. Since Lord Brougham's Act, this evide clause has been retained, with the addition of an enact that the "act shall not be deemed a public act." 3. The last class of acts are those which still remain printed: they consist of name, naturalization, divorce, other strictly personal acts, of which a list is always pri by the Queen's printers, after the titles of the other pr! acts. will be judic. A local and personal act, declared public, may be usel all purposes, as a public general statute. It may be g in evidence upon the general issue, and noticed, without being formally set forth. Nor is it ne sary to show that it was printed by the Queen's printes the words of the public clause do not require it, and printed copy of a public act is supposed to be used me for the purpose of refreshing the memory of the judge, has already been acquainted with its enactments. A prin act, on the contrary, whether printed or not, must be speci pleaded, and given in evidence like any other record. printed, the copy printed by the Queen's printers is rece as an examined copy of the record; if not printed. authenticated copy is produced from the statute rolls in Parliament office.1 By the Act 8 & 9 Vict. c. 113, s. 3, it is enacted “t all copies of private and local and personal Acts of Parliar not public acts, if purporting to be printed by the Que printers," "shall be admitted as evidence thereof by courts, judges, justices, and others, without any proof b given that such copies were so printed." |