posed nomination submitted by persons manifestly and notoriously under age, or of the female sex, or utter strangers to the municipality. It was urged, however that the law vests in the presiding officer no power of inquiry as to a fact so complex, and which might be so far from easy of ascertainment, as that of a man's electoral qualification under article 291. This is quite true; but the inference supposed does not follow. Time could not possibly be spared for such inquiry,carried on at any length; nor is it conceivable that occasion could ever really arise for it. Supposing a proposer's quality be called in question, whether by the presiding officer, or by any one else, there could never be the smallest trouble, in the case of any one bonâ fide about to become a candidate, in sub-tituting or adding one or more proposers of undoubted quality. And any provision for defining and hedging round the presiding officer's discretion and powers in the premises would, therefore, have been almost absurdly out of place in the statute. He could do no real practical wrong, unless it were by a systematic refusal of good men, one after another, as proposers. And, against such wrong as that, which would amount to fraud of the grossest kind no mere text of law could guard. Nor would such fraud, in view of its presumable consequences to the guilty party, if on no other ground, be likely to be often resorted to. It by no means, however, therefore follows, that, after a presiding officer (as in this case) has, without objection raised from any quarter, deliberately received and proposed the names of any persons as candidates, and has taken the sense of the meeting upon them, and has, declared for which of them the majority of the electors present had pronounced, and has received, still without objection, a requisition from five or more presumed electors, for a poll, and has called on the electors present to come up and vote, he can go back upon all he has thus done, and, on the ground that a nomination or demand of poll was not duly made by qualified electors, or, indeed, on any ground, treat such nomination or demand as a simple nullity, and the case as one which requires him to declare candidates elected without a poll being held. It is true that the law contemplates the spending of no more than one hour upon the preliminaries of nomination and demand of poll. It is his duty, as soon as he possibly can after the hour, to proclaim an election, or graut a poll, or (as the case may be) do both. But there is no fatal moment after which he becomes legally incapable of doing either or both of these acts. On the contrary, indeed, reading together articles 311 and 312, it will be seen that, though they allow, they do not absolutely require the demand of a poll to be made within the hour; and that the presiding officer is merely required, at the close of

the hour, upon such demand made, to proceed" without delay" to hold the poll Of course, such demand, too, if not made before, should be made "without delay" after. And the presiding officer would err in idly or wilfully extending the time. But the error would not therefore abate his functions as presiding officer. In this particular case, it is in evidence that, from the perplexity as to his duty, felt by the presiding officer, in the novel and embarrassing position in which he found himself, nearly two hours passed before his final decision was declared and his proclamation made. And neither party contends that, on that account, his action can be set aside. To suppose that the Legi-lature meant him to be at one and the same time capable of validly judging and acting as to informalities in the transactions of a past hour, and incapable of so judging an acting in that behalf, as to correct such informalities, and so validate the transactions themselves, is simply impossible. Indeed, after once a nomination has been put to vote, and been affirmed on division by any considerable number of undoubted electors, it is hard to see to what practical end any question as to the qualification of the two original proposers can be raised Every elector dividing for it, has, in fact made himself a proposer; and must be presumed ready, if asked, instantly to give in his name as such. Not to say that, as matter of principle, the proposition that, after such affirmance, any amendment of the original nomination can be requisite, on pain of nullity of the nomination, would imply also, that, even after election, by the polled votes of ever so overwhelming a majority of the electors, the candidates elected would have to be unseated, by reason of such nullity, which then, certainly, would not admit of cure by any process of amendment. The Court has, thus no alternative but to annul the appointment complained of, on the ground of the non-observance of the formalities (necessary under the circumstances as established) of holding a poll and enregistering the votes of the electors. It is with great satisfaction that the Court is able to add, that neither in the evidence taken, nor yet even in any heat of argument, his there been any suggestion made of intended fraud or unfair practice, as against the presiding officer, or, indeed, as against any one. The parties to the controversy have presented it purely as one of interpretation of the law, upon points reasonably admitting of controversy, and most especially so, where the parties to the controversy (as here) were non-professional men, an were dealing with a statute recently enacted, novel in its general style and phraseology, and in respect of the provisions here in question wholly unlike any older statute heretofore in force in that behalf. 23

TOME XXII.

The presiding officer is therefore entitled to be named, as by the judgment of the Court he accordingly is, to preside at the meeting to be held thereunder, on Wednesday, the 13th of March next, for election of councillors for the municipality. Costs must be granted the petitioner, as he is driven, without default on his part, to exercise a legal remedy in maintenance of a right, from which the respondents (with however little sense or intention of wrong doing in the premises) have ousted him. Judgment in favor of petitioner. (16 J., p. 164) JAMES O'HALLORAN, Q. C., for petitioner. G. C. V. BUCHANAN, for respondents.

MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS.

CIRCUIT COURT, Sherbrooke, February, 1872.

Coram RAMSAY, A. J.

LINDSAY B. LAWFORD et al., Petitioners, and The Hon. J. G. ROBERTSON et al., Respondents.

Held: 1° That the election of six municipal councillors, who have been elected as such under the provisions of the Municipal Code of the province of Quebec, may be contested by a single petition presented under article 346 of the said Code, even though the grounds of contestation are separate and different as to each of the councillors whose election is contested by the petitioners, and are not common to the whole of the respondents.

2 That in such a case a petition by five municipal electors against the return of all the candidates objected to, and a single bond of security for costs, are sufficient.

3 That the payment of all municipal and school taxes due at the period of a municipal election is an essential part of the qualification of a municipal elector, and that a nomination of candidates made by persons who, at the time of such nomination, were indebted for taxes, is void, even although they were otherwise duly qualified electors, and notwithstanding the provisions of article 16 of the Municipal Code.

4 That, in order to show that municipal taxes are due, it is not sufficient to produce and prove the by-law of the Municipal Council by which they were imposed, but it is also necessary to show that the collection roll of the municipality was made and deposited in the office of the Secretary-Treasurer, and notice of such deposit given as required by the Municipal and Road Act of 1860, sec. 59, ¿¿ 9, 12 and 13, and articles 954 and 960 of the Municipal Code, and that, until these formalities have been complied with, taxes are not due or exigible.

5 That a declaration made by the officer appointed to preside at the election, previous to the expiration of one hour from the commen cement of the proceedings (Municipal Code, articles 310. 311), that certain candidates whose election was not opposed, were duly elected, is not a fatal irregularity, unless substantial injustice appears to have been caused thereby.

6 That, upon a contested election of municipal councillors, a scrutiny of votes may be had under article 346 of the Municipal Code; even

although the votes objected to by the petitioners were not objected to at the time they were given, nor any entry of objection made in the poll-book.

7° That a municipal election may be contested upon the ground of bribery used by candidates and their supporters.

8 That when an error in addition is apparent on the face of the pollbook, the result of which is to seat a candidate who actually received fewer votes than another who was not declared elected in consequence of that error, the mistake will be corrected, and the candidate who actually received the majority of votes will be declared elected.

RAMSAY, A. J.: This is a petition to set aside the election of six of the councillors elected, at the recent election held on the 8th and 9th of last month, to wit, Joseph G Robertson, Richard D. Morkill, George H. Borlase, Joseph A. Archambault, John Campbell and John Precourt, and to declare to be elected in the room and stead of four of them, John Griffith, Wm. B. Ives, Napoleon T. Dussault and Hubert C. Cabana, and that a new election be ordered for the vacant places of councillor. This proceeding is taken under the authority of articles 346 and 348 of the Municipal Code. The grounds of contestation may be classed under five heads: 1st ground: that the mover and seconder of each of the councillors whose election is contested were not themselves electors entitled to vote; 2nd ground: that, before there was any opposition to two of them, to wit, of Robertson and Morkill, and before the expiration of one hour from the opening of the meeting, the presiding officer declared the said two gentlemen to be elected as councillors; 3rd ground: that the candidature of the other four, to wit, Borlase, Archambault, Campbell and Precourt, was supported by illegal votes, either by reason of indebtedness to the corporation, or by absence of sufficient qualification; 4th ground: Bribery and corruption; 5th ground: that the poll-book is incorrectly added, and that, on the face of it, there is an apparent majority for Griffith over Precourt. It is further alleged that all these irregularities were promoted by the partiality of the presiding officer and of the poll-clerk who had been appointed by the influence of the councillors whose election is attacked. The six councillors whose election is thus attacked have appeared separately, and each has filed a motion to reject the petition. The grounds of these motions are the same in substance. They are: First: that the six respondents have been improperly joined in the petition; that it is not a petition to set aside the election of certain councillors for an objection or objections common to all those petitioned against; but that the petition sets up grounds attacking each councillor individually, and that part of the grounds attach to one or other of the respondents but not to all; Second: that there are only five electors petitioners, and that it requires the con

currence of five electors to attack an election by such a petition; Third: that the security bond is in-ufficient, being only the security required for the contestation of the election of a single councillor. It is at once evident that the three grounds of this motion are all included in the first, and that, in reality, the second and third are only illustrations of the inconvenience that might arise from allowing the joinder of two or more councillors in a proceeding of this sort. In support of this motion it is urged that the terms of the law (art. 346 M. C) indicates that the petition must be against only one councillor, for the singular number is there used, "any appointment of councillor inade by the electors may be contested," &c It is further said that it would be manifestly unjust to involve, for instance, Robertson and Morkill, in the litigation as to the alleged illegal votes given to their colleagues when they were elected by acclamation; that, by the accident of their election at the same time, they have not incurred a joint responsibility to answer the petitioners, a bit more, said one of the learned counsel, than two men debtors of the same party, on two different promissory notes, because the debtors lived in the same house. It was also argued by analogy that there could be no such joinder, that two sitting members of Parliament could not be petitioned against in the same petition; that two individuals could not be called to account for different things by the same prerogative writ. In support of the petition it was argued that the word councillor in art. 346 M. C. did not in the least indicate that a petition would only be against each councillor separately; that the form of the sentence showed that this was not the intention, and that, besides, by the interpretation acts the singular number includes the plural. Reference was also made to arts 349, 350 and 361, as indicating that the petition might be against several. On the part of the petitioners, it was further urged, that they were joined on the same principle that parties liable for a tort were joined, that at all events some of the grounds of the petition were common to them all, and that a petition against all those objected to was the only way the candidate, wrongfully excluded, could get his seat without being exposed to making as many petitions as there were councillors, because the candidate was not the opponent of a particular other candidate. The argument drawn from the wording of article 346, in support of the motions appears to me to be very unsatisfactory. Any appointment of councillor," done into ordinary English, is "the appointment of any councillor," &c. This does not necessarily imply that the contestation of the appointment of each councillor shall be separate. On looking at the old law, under the C. S. L. C.,