ceipt of the profits fhall vote, but that this privilege fhall belong to the real owner when in poffeffion; this is very different from enacting that there shall be no vote for a truft eftate. The ftatute does not fay the right shall be loft, or not used, but that where there is in fact a Ceftui que trust or a mortgagor, in poffeffion, he only fhall vote: For before this ftatute, the owner of the legal eftate might have turned the beneficial owner from the poll; till then, no Ceftui que truft, in ftrictness of law, had any right to vote, and the old rules that formerly prevailed on the subject of Ufes, prevented him from exercifing this act of legal ownership over an eftate in which he had, in contemplation of law, but a fiduciary intereft (L.) Thus the words and fpirit of this law are fully anfwered, when applied to thofe cafes only in which there happens to be a mortgagor, or Ceftui que trust in poffeffion; where that is not the cafe, the law may be faid to have no operation. It will not be denied, that a woman in poffeffion may give a right to vote which the cannot enjoy herself; this cafe clearly illuftrates

M 3

trates the argument, that where the right is inherent in the property, it does not depend upon the circumstances of the perfon holding it; if it did, all thofe freeholds in trust under the disabilities of infancy and fex would be disfranchised.

By receipt of the rents, the ftatute cannot be supposed to mean the hand that actually receives them, that would be too abfurd; the Ceftui que truft is allowed by this ftatute to vote, not because he does in fact receive them, but because he is intitled so to do: In the prefent cafe, no person is intitled to receive them but the truftees, accountable hereafter to the infant, and therefore they are, according to the ftatute, the persons in receipt of the rents: Though no direct proof has been given of the income's coming to their hands, yet Mr. Shafto's actual receipt of them is in their right, and by their authority; and this leads to an answer to the queftion, whether the truftees could perfonally vote for this estate, But fuppofing the trustees not to be in receipt of the rents, the counsel on the other fide have not fhewn that any other

perfon

person is, (for the infant certainly is not) and till that is done, they cannot avail themselves of this claufe of the statute, which does not abfolutely annul the right of the trustee, but transfers it to fome other who has the substantial poffeffion, wherever fuch perfon appears.

On the day after the counsel had finished their arguments, the Committee resolved, "That the vote of Thomas Wornell was good:"

At the fame time that the chairman informed the counfel of this refolution, he told them that this was not intended to preclude any other objections to the vote, but fimply to determine upon that which had been argued.

As foon as this determination was given, the counsel for the fitting members agreed to admit twenty votes upon the poll for the petitioners, against whom they could make no other objection than this of a conveyance from the trustees; likewise one cross vote given for Bouverie and Shafto: So that the poll in this ftage of the caufe appeared to have,

Many objections were raised against the other votes of the petitioners, as their counsel were going through the evidence necessary to establish them; this was done by proving the voters poffeffed of freeholds in antient burgages within the borough, paying the accustomed quit-rents to the lord: The chief inftrument of evidence ufed for this purpofe was a quit-rent roll in Mr. Shafto's poffeffion, of all the burgages in Downton; this had been copied from one belonging to Lord Feverfham, in the year 1745, by his then steward, for the purpose of collecting the chief or quit-rents payable to the lord by the burgage tenants; Lord Feverfham being at that time leffee of the lordship under the bishop: It paffed therefore as authentic evidence against all perfons claiming under Lord Feverfham. In this roll all the burgages were numbered, and generally defcribed by the name

of

of the then owner, or of his predeceffor, or fometimes of the occupier; oppofite to which was placed the fum of the quit-rent due therefrom: Parole teftimony was adduced by the counsel to identify the premises transferred to the voters, (the title deeds being produced) and to connect them with the quit-rent roll. This fort of proof naturally lay open to fuch objections as the ingenuity of counfel is ready to fuggeft; fuch as, to the entirety, antiquity, or identity, of the burgage, or to the witneffes, or the evidence; many of these arofe on mere queftions of fact, which were either foon difpofed of, or terminated in no point of law, and therefore I have not thought them worth reporting. All those from which any legal queftion arose I have preserved, and I hope faithfully.

The number of votes to which fubftantial objections were made on the part of the fitting members, was at length reduced to seventeen, as following;

To eleven, that their tenements were only fubdivided, and uncertain parts of burgages,

To