uo_) in the case of a proposed
law; L. (_libero_) and D. (_damno_) in the case of a public trial; in the
case of an election, _puncta_ were made opposite the names or initials of
the candidates. _Tabellae_ were also used by the Roman judices, who
expressed their verdict or judgment by the letters A. (_absolvo_), C.
(_condemno_), and N. L. (_non liquet_). In modern times voting by ballot is
usually by some form of writing, but the use of the ball still persists
(especially in clubs), and a "black ball" is the regular term for a hostile
vote.

_Great Britain_.--In Great Britain the ballot was suggested for use in
parliament by a political tract of the time of Charles II. It was actually
used by the Scots parliament of 1662 in proceeding on the Billeting Act, a
measure proposed by Middleton to secure the ostracism of Lauderdale and
other political opponents who were by secret-vote declared incapable of
public office. The plan followed was this: each member of parliament wrote,
in a disguised hand, on a piece of paper, the names of twelve suspected
persons; the billets were put in a bag held by the registrar; the bag was
then sealed, and was afterwards opened and its contents ascertained in the
exchequer chamber, where the billets were immediately burned and the names
of the ostracised concealed on oath. The Billeting Act was repudiated by
the king, and the ballot was not again heard of till 1705, when Fletcher of
Saltoun, in his measure for a provisional government of Scotland by annual
parliaments in the event of Queen Anne's death, proposed secret-voting to
protect members from court influence. The gradual emancipation of the
British parliament from the power of the crown, and the adoption of a
strictly representative system of election, not only destroyed whatever
reason may once have existed for the ballot in deliberative voting, but
rendered it essential that such voting should be open. It was in the
agitations for parliamentary reform at the beginning of the 19th century
that the demand for the ballot in parliamentary elections was first
seriously made. The Benthamites advocated the system in 1817. At the
so-called Peterloo Massacre (1819) several banners were inscribed with the
ballot. O'Connell introduced a bill on the subject in 1830; and the
original draft of Lord John Russell's Reform Bill, probably on the
suggestion of Lords Durham and Duncannon, provided for its introduction.
Later on the historian Grote became