§ MR. RICHARDasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he is aware that considerable dissatisfaction exists among the working men of Merthyr and the mining districts of South Wales owing to the omission from the Parliamentary Register, and thereby the practical disfranchisement, of several hundreds of their number who earned the money they received from the parish, during the lock-out last year, by breaking stones; and, whether money received in payment for work done is to be regarded as "parochial relief or other alms," in the sense which disqualifies the recipient from being a voter?
MR. ASSHETON CROSS, in reply, said, that no complaint had been made from working men of Merthyr and South Wales that they had been disfranchised because they had received parochial relief. The law with regard to the matter was laid down in 2 & 3 Will. IV. c. 45, sections 35 and 36, and declared that the receipt of parochial relief should disqualify, under certain circumstances, the persons receiving it. That enactment was extended to counties by 31 Vict. c. 102, and it was a question for the revising barrister whether particular persons came under the disqualification, and his decision was subject to an appeal. He understood that in the present case no appeal had been made against the decision of the revising bar- 1206 rister, and he need hardly add that the Home Secretary had no jurisdiction in the matter.