§ Mr. Staveleypresented a Petition from the inhabitants of Ripon, thanking the hon. House for passing the Reform Bill, and complaining of the manufacture of votes for cow-houses, and other mean buildings, seven miles from that borough, whereby the constituency 2 was well-nigh swamped. An in dividual who owned much property in that neighbourhood, had already made so many votes, that she threatened to swamp the borough, and reduce it to the degraded state of Gatton or Old Sarum. They prayed for the protection of the ballot. He supported the Petition.
§ Mr. Bainessaid, that the flagrant violation of the people's rights committed at Ripon, which certainly was a gross perversion of the spirit of the Act, had been, if possible, exceeded by a circumstance that had taken place at Leeds at the last election. Instead of a cow-house, a pigstye was endeavoured to be made the medium of sending a member to this House. This pigstye consisted of only four stones set upright; and being called a building, and having land of sufficient value attached to it, three persons actually voted in right of it. He trusted that some alteration would be made in the Reform Act, that would defeat these invasions of the people's rights, and make voters the holders of real buildings.
Mr. Cromptonsupported the prayer of the Petition. The lady in question was seeking, by most unjustifiable means, to obtain a hold over the borough; and, if she went on in her present plans, as there were only 300 voters, it would be a mockery to call it an open borough. It would soon be emphatically her borough.
§ Petition to lie on the Table.