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thereof; the reason for such a departure given in both Acts being the
impracticability of collecting the rates from a class of occupiers which
was necessarily very poor and constantly shifting. By 3 and 4 Vic.,
cap. 89, the rating of inhabitants in respect of their personal effects,
authorised by the statute of Elizabeth, was practically abolished. By
the Reform Act of 1832, the qualification for the Parliamentary franchise
was made dependent upon occupation and rating, and registration
being thus rendered necessary, the Kate Book became thenceforth the
basis of the Parliamentary Register.
In time followed the Representation of the People Act, 1867,
which defined "Dwelling House" as including "any part of a house
occupied as a separate dwelling, and separately rated to the relief of
the poor" and (it being thought desirable to give to as many as possible
the household franchise which was dependent on actual rating, the
doctrine of constructive rating being as yet in its infancy), this Act
went on by sec. 7 to repeal the provisions of the Acts I have just
referred to as providing for the rating of owners of small tenements
instead of the occupiers. The repealing section, however, contained
the followed exception:—"Where the dwelling house or tenement shall
be wholly let out in apartments or lodgings nut separately rated, the
owner of such dwelling house or tenement shall be rated in respect
thereof to the Poor Rate." This exception was the subject of judicial
interpretation by the Court of Common Pleas, in the case of "Stamper
v. The Overseers of Sunderland" (16 W. R. 1063). The latter, acting
as they considered in pursuance of the section, had rated the occupiers
of six separate rooms in a "let out'" house, for which house, at the time
of the passing of the Act, the owner had been rated. Stamper, one of
the occupiers, appealed against the rate, on the ground that the house
was wholly let out in apartments, and that as the occupier of one of
such apartments, he was not the occupier of any land, house, or
tenement liable by law to be rated to the relief of the poor. The
Comb of Common Pleas allowed the appeal, deciding that where a
house is wholly let out in apaitments the owner, and not the occupier,
is the person to be rated, by virtue of the exception already referred to.
The Legislature e had scarcely, for reasons connected with registration,
repeled the law enabling Overseers to rate owners of small tenements,
than, for reasons connected with the collection of the rates, they found