3. OF THE BILL.

No observations are referrible to the framing Improvement Bills

beyond those made on bills in general (1).

PRIVATE BILLS.

Duty of Solicitor.

The only proofs which it will be necessary for the solicitor to obtain Proofs. will be with respect to the notices and the preamble of the bill, and which will be the same as those mentioned under the last preceding head of PROOFS (2), except where a part of the improvements intended is the lighting with gas, in which further proof must be adduced of the presumed expence and of the subscription-list for defraying it.

The proceedings on Bills of the above description not particularly Agent. noticed, will be properly left, as before observed (3), to the management of the Parliamentary agent, without any other interference on the part of the solicitor than as may be directed by such agent.

SECTION IV.

OF POOR-BILLS.

The only remaining species of Bill of a private general nature, is that relative to the support of the poor by rates, levying of rates, modes of employment, or other means not authorized by the subsisting poor laws, and providing workhouses and other places of receptacle for their suitable accommodation.

But as all the modes of proceeding for obtaining Bills for that purpose, and the several stages through which they pass are the same as those of Improvement Bills (4), it is deemed unnecessary to increase the pages of the present essay by particularly mentioning them.

POOR-BILLS.

As lighting a town with gas is ranked amongst Improvement Bills, it might be supposed Water. that supplying a town with water would also be so; it is therefore proper to notice that a bill

for this purpose, when not a joint stock concern, is classed with and subjected by the standing orders of Parliament, to the same regulations as the bills treated of in Chapter I.

(4) See ante, p. xxix.

PRIVATE BILLS.

Duty of Solicitor.

But with respect to the BILL itself, "It is ordered that no bill be presented to the House relating to Poors-rates, or to the maintenance or employment of the Poor, or to Workhouses, containing any clause or clauses whereby the general Law of Settlement of the Poor shall be departed from; or any power of corporal punishment given to any persons employed in the management of the Poor."

For all other proceedings, intermediate and subsequent, on bills of this description, see IMPROVEMENT BILLS, ante, pp. xxix. xxxi. and the references there made.

PARLIAMENTA

RY FORMS.

Duty of Solicitor.

CHAPTER III.

OF PRIVATE PARTICULAR BILLS, OR BILLS FOR FAMILY PUR

POSES (1).

THE SECOND class of Private Bills consists of those for family or other individual purposes, as ESTATE BILLS, DIVORCE BILLS, NATURALIZATION BILLS, and Bills for extending LETTERS PATENT.-The first only of these, however, can, it is thought, be considered of sufficient general importance to deserve any particular notice in a work of the present nature.

OF ESTATE BILLS.

Bills are denominated Estate Bills when they relate to the settlement, sale, exchange, or other disposition of or charge upon estates, or, more properly (for this is their usual object), when they are to empower parties to exercise a dominion over estates which either the want of a sufficient extent of interest, or of personal incapacity from infancy, &c. renders them incompetent to do.

But Estate Bills being in the nature of common assurances for carrying into effect private agreements between parties on the subject of their own peculiar affairs, without involving the interest of the public at large, they do not, in general, require either

Notices,

Maps, plans, or sections,

ESTATE BILLS

are common

assurances.

(1) It may be proper to notice that the directions given under this head are confined to states in England only, without reference to estates in Scotland or Ireland.

SUP.-VOL. III.

* G

which we have seen to be requisite in most private bills of a more general nature (except only in the single instance of notice, which must be given to a mortgagee, if any, of the estate (1)). All these may therefore, in treating of this species of bill, be entirely passed over. Hence

we commence with

PETITION.

Framing petition.

Signature.

1. THE PETITION FOR LEAVE to bring in the BILL.

As petitions for Estate Bills must in all cases, by order of the House, receive the approbation of the judges, i. e. two of them, before they will be received by Parliament (except where the bill embraces any object requiring the imposition of some toll or other pecuniary burthen upon third persons), they are usually presented to the Upper House (2). This Petition, in order that it may be countenanced by the House, should contain a satisfactory account of the difficulties or inconvenience which the parties sustain for want of the object of the petition, the advantages which would accrue from it, and the incompetency of any other court of judicature to afford relief, and moreover that no persons who may hereafter become interested in the property under the subsisting limitations, &c. can be prejudiced by the bill.

And by an order of the Lords all parties concerned in the consequences of any private bill must sign the petition for leave to bring such

bill into the House.

(1) "It is ordered [by the Lords] that when a petition is presented to this House for a Private Bill, notice shall be given to any person being a mortgagee of the estate intended to be affected by the bill."

(2) See ante, p. vii.

And this order extends to mere trustees for interested parties, with the exception only of those serving as conduit pipes in settlement, for the purpose of preserving contingent remainders, &c.

Upon the Petition being referred to the Judges, the solicitor must

be ready with proofs in verification of all the allegations contained in it, essential to support the prayer of the bill.

PARLIAMENTA

RY FORMS.

Duty of Solicitor.

Proofs to be procured by solicitor.

Agreements, deeds, and other documents executed within thirty Deeds, &c. years past, in anywise affecting the objects of the bill, must be proved,

and this proof must be by the personal attendance of the witnesses to

the execution, unless dispensed with by the Judges.

And if a preceding Act of Parliament be recited, a copy from the

King's Printer must be produced.

Births, marriages, deaths, &c. must be proved as in the case of titles, by certificates of registry.

The consent of all parties immediately or remotely interested (unless Consent of parties. their interest may be barred by fine or recovery) in the bill, (even though trustees only for others, as well as their cestui que trusts) must also be proved, either before the judges or the committee, by their personal attendance, unless under particular circumstances to be specially allowed; and if any such parties be infants, their consent must be given by their parents or guardians, and although of age, yet if they be entitled to portions not yet paid, the consent of their trustees as well as of themselves will be required: and in respect of trustees, for whatever purpose they may be so, (except only for preserving contingent remainders,) even though only for the application of money to pass through their hands, their consent will be required.

Where particular circumstances, as illness, absence abroad, or the like, prevent the possibility of personal attendance, the consent must be verified by affidavit of two persons not interested in the bill, or by a person expressly empowered for that purpose.

Should either of the above modes of consent be physically impracticable, a clause for dispensing with it must be inserted in the bill.