V 320 M I N U T E S OF E V I D E N C E T A K E N B E F O R E THE Battersby Esq nothing can he more different than the views of an individual acting in the capacity of a judge and acting in the capacity of a counsel; I think the state 26 June 1838. of his mind is totally different in those two capacities. 14017. My question referred to the counsel concerned in resisting the claim; I sav, with reference to him, it is his duty to exercise peculiar astuteness to dis- cover' objections to resist the claim ?— Of course it is his duty. 14018. And of course there is no such duty upon the gentleman sitting as registering barrister ?— No; and if it is his duty he does not apply his mind so much to detect them. 14019. Then, without imputing blame to the registering barrister, things might escape his attention which, if the counsel had been permitted to inspect, he might detect ?— I am certain if I were a registering barrister, I should, with- out any culpable inattention, overlook in those instruments what I should see if I were acting as counsel. 14020. Then the advantage of your being allowed inspection in other places was, that you were able by the inspection to defeat a great many fictitious votes ?— A great many; but particularly in the case of leases with clauses against sub- letting. 14021. Mr. O'Connell.] By fictitious votes you do not mean the votes of persons not in possession ?— No. 14022. And you do not mean the votes of persons who had not leases, but those who had leases to which there were legal objections ?— I mean the votes of persons holding under instruments which are not leases, as they do not convey a legal interest to a person claiming, such as a lease with a clause against sub- letting, for instance, which, after condition broken, does not give the party an interest. 14023. Mr. Serjeant Jackson^] In that answer the person whom you con- sider as the person claiming to register would be the sub- lessee ?— He would be a person holding under an instrument which did not convey to him any legal interest, or under which he did not hold any legal interest. 14024. Mr. O' Connell.] Surely you could not know whether in the man's lease who let to him, there was a clause of sub- letting?— No. 14025. Then in his own lease there could be only a clause prohibiting him from sub- letting ?— Yes. 14026. Then he must come and register from actual possession, must he not; must not ever}- man, among the claims you speak of, come to register as being himself in the actual possession ?— He must come to register, professing him- self to be in the actual possession if he be a 10 l. claimant; if he be above that he need not be in possession. 14027. And if he either admits upon his own examination, or it is proved that he is not in possession, he could not be registered as a 10 l. voter ?— No. 14028. In the county of Wicklow who was the assistant barrister?— Mr. Toom. 14029. Is that the gentleman who was the nephew of the late Chief Baron Joy ?— He was some relation, I believe. 14030. You know it is not pleasant to any man to allow the adverse counsel to inspect his title deed, whatever it might be ?— A man would probably rather not allow him to inspect it. 14031. Must he not be an intelligent man, with a clear case, who will allow the eye of an adverse counsel to pry into his lease ?— A man will never allow it to be done if he can avoid it; but I never, except in the King's County, saw any man claim any legal title or right, under any lease or instrument, in a court of justice, where the party appearing to resist the claim was not allowed to inspect it. 14032. It was his franchise; there was no process pending in which the validity of his lease could be decided directly ?— I conceive when I acted as counsel there, to oppose his claim, I had the same right to show cause against his being registered as I should have against his establishing a title in eject- ment, or any other form of action to which I should happen to be opposed as counsel. 14033. That is, if he brought an ejectment, and you were counsel for the defendant, your idea of the station you were in in opposing the franchise was, that you had the same right of investigating the title, and the same right of making objections to the claimant's title upon the form of his deed that you would