anticipated. Before the 9th of June, nine
hundred and sixty-nine had expressed their dissent, and they held stock
to the amount of L4,600,000. In order to provide funds for paying
off these dissentients, a resolution was passed on the 7th of June,
authorising the commissioners of the national debt to pay them out
of the monies, stocks, or exchequer-bills which they held under "the
savings' bank act." The dissented stock was from the tenth of October
following to be considered as converted into an equal amount of three
and a half per cents., which were to be vested in the commissioners, and
placed in the bank-books to the account intituled "funds for the banks
of savings."

BILL FOR THE REMOVAL OF THE CIVIL DISABILITIES OF THE JEWS, ETC.

{WILLIAM IV. 1834}

During this session Mr. Robert Grant again brought in a bill for
removing the civil disabilities of the Jews. The second reading was
opposed by Mr. C. Bruce. He moved that the bill be read a second time
that day six months. The amendment, however, was rejected, and the bill
carried through committee by large majorities, and it was read a third
time and passed on the 11th of June by fifty votes against fourteen.
In the lords, on the second reading, the Earl of Malmsbury moved the
amendment that the bill should be read that day six months. The Earl of
Winchilsea seconded the amendment. On a division the bill was lost by
one hundred and thirty-two against thirty-eight.

The distress felt at this time by all classes of the community was
dexterously made use of by the opponents of ministers to render their
administration unpopular. They became exposed to great inconvenience
from a statutory rule of the constitution, which requires that all
members of the house of commons who accept certain offices under the
crown shall vacate their seats, and take the chance of a re-election. In
more instances than one, the candidate thus stamped with the approbation
of government had not been re-elected; and even the attorney-general,
having, by his promotion, lost his seat for Dudley, was unable to
appear in the house of commons. This was the first practical grievance
experienced under the reform act, which had swept away all the close
boroughs without any exception, and provided no means to compensate the
loss. This state of matters induced Sir Robert Heron, on the 1st of May,
to move for leave to bring in a bill to obviate the necessity of members
vacating their seats on th