and accordingly the bill which, under the influence of these considerations, Lord Grey’s administration brought forward in the spring of 1831, gave rise to the fiercest struggles in both Houses of Parliament that had been witnessed for many generations.  One Parliament was dissolved; two sessions of that which followed were opened in a single year; once the ministry itself was dissolved, though speedily reconstructed; and three bills were framed, each in some degree differing from its predecessor in some of its details, though all preserved the same leading principles of disfranchising wholly or partially the smaller boroughs; of enfranchising several large and growing towns; of increasing the number of county representatives; and of enfranchising also some classes which previously had had no right of voting.  It would be a waste of time to specify the variations in the three bills.  It is sufficient to confine our attention to that which eventually became law.  Fifty-six boroughs were wholly disfranchised; those in which the population fell short of a certain number (2000), and where the amount of assessed taxes paid by the inhabitants was correspondingly small.  Thirty more were deprived of one of their members, being those in which the population was between 2000 and 4000.  And the seats thus vacated were divided between the towns which since the Revolution had gradually grown into importance, the suburbs of the metropolis, and the counties, the majority of which were now divided into two halves, each half returning two members, as many as had previously represented the whole.  The boundaries of the boroughs, too, were in most cases extended.

More important, perhaps, in its influence on subsequent legislation was the alteration made in the qualifications which constituted an elector.  Hitherto the franchise, the right of voting at elections, had been based on property.  The principle had not, indeed, been uniformly adhered to in the boroughs, where, as Lord John Russell, in the speech with which he introduced the bill, pointed out, a curious variety of courses had been adopted.  “In some,” as he described the existing practice, “the franchise was exercised by ‘a select corporation;’ that is to say, it was in the possession of a small number of persons, to the exclusion of the great body of the inhabitants who had property and interest in the place represented.  In ancient times, he believed, every freeman, being an inhabitant householder resident in the borough, was competent to vote.  As, however, this arrangement excluded villeins and strangers, the franchise always belonged to a particular body in every town—­a body undoubtedly possessed of property, for they bore the charges of their members, and on them were assessed the subsidies and taxes voted by Parliament.  But when villeinage ceased, various and opposite courses seemed to have been pursued in different boroughs.  In some, adopting the liberal principle that all freemen were to be admitted, householders