> 92 MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE THE ./. C. Besnard. will attend at different places to proceed with the registration ?- Sb I under- ^ 6315. Would not the same arrangement, mutatis mutandus, be easily appli- cable in a large city like Cork ?- the present. Mr 12 March 1838. nwx^ w J ^ X X - Decidedly ; and nothing could be worse than happen of 1 Cw lblj. —' — - # . . 0317. But, upon the whole, even the fact of having that supplementary registration would be more convenient for the great body of voters than the exceeding uncertainty in which they are now placed as to when their claims will come 011? Certainly. There is a regulation in the Irish Reform Act which is very absurd to my mind. The barristers are bound to go regularly through the list" three times.' If a man does not happen to be there the very moment his name is called, they have to go through the whole list before they come to him again. 6318. Mr. Serjeant Jackson.'] According to the provisions of the Irish Reform Bill, it is the duty of the assistant barrister* on whom the duty of registry devolves, to proceed, before he enters upon any other branch of the business, to the business of registering; and he is bound to call over the entire list of claimants to register three times before he goes on any other branch of business, and that involves the necessity of the whole body of claimants coming to the court at the same time ?— Very often he runs through the whole list, and a man at the end of the alphabet finds his name called sooner than he expected. 6319. Would you consider it a good arrangement to allow each man, as lie came in, to offer himself to be admitted to register, if he made but his case to the barrister, and then to go on to others ?— I think a district arrangement would be the best; but if there was any interval, then it would be fair to allow a man o come in; but the district arrangement would be the best. 6320. Would not the allowing any person that presented himself in that way to be registered, no matter to what district he belonged, have this tendency, that it might take by surprise those persons that might have to oppose that man ?— It might, certainly; and therefore I think the district registration is the best. 6321. Because if you were to allow an opportunity for persons coining in occasionally to tender themselves, it would be in the power of persons that wanted to escape investigation to watch their opportunity, wiien the persons they knew to be interested in opposing them, and witnesses prepared to give evidence against them, had turned their backs, to tender themselves to the barrister ?— That might be the consequence. 6322. Do you happen to know that a great many respectable persons abstain from imposing upon themselves the trouble and loss of time of tendering them- selves to register, in consequence of the loss of time connected with it ?— I am sure of it. 6323. Are there any other suggestions you would offer for the purpose of improving the state of the registration law ?— There are some minor points, but I think it is not worth while to trouble the Committee with them. 6324. Would you alter the law as it now stands upon the subject of the right of voting immediately after registration ?— I would certainly think it judicious to have every man vote as soon as the claimant was registered; but then I would recommend that the Irish law should be made to correspond with the English, and that is, that he should be 12 months in possession of the house, before he registered. In Ireland a man need be six months in possession only before he registers, but then he must be six months without voting. Now I think he should be 12 months in possession, and vote immediately upon being registered. O325. Then your improvement in that respect would consist in the assimi- lation of the Irish law to the law of England ?— It would. There is another assimilation I would suggest: I think it would be judicious to have it required that whatever rates are to be paid should be paid before a given day, as in England. In Ireland the rates are very often paid at the very moment of registration, or at the very moment previous to voting. Now " it would not depend upon voting if the law was altered as I suggest, but it would depend upon the registration. If there was an annual revision, the question of pay- ment