The right of election being generally vested “in inhabitants paying scot and lot, and not receiving alms or any charity,” these terms require explanation. What it is to pay scot and lot, or to _pay scot_ and _bear lot_ is nowhere exactly defined. According to Stockdale’s “Parliamentary Guide,” compiled in 1784, it is probable that, from signifying some special municipal or parochial tax or duty, they came in time to be used in a popular sense, to comprehend generally the burdens and obligations to which the inhabitants of a borough or parish were liable as such. What seems the proper interpretation is, that by inhabitants “paying scot and lot,” those persons are meant whose circumstances are sufficiently independent to enable them to contribute in general to such taxes and burdens as they are liable to as inhabitants of the place. In Scotland, when a person petitions to be admitted a burgess of a royal borough, he engages he will _scot_ and _lot_, i.e. _watch_ and _ward_; and by statute (2 Geo. 1, c. 18, s. 9) it is ascertained that in the election of representatives for the city of London, the legislature understood _scot_ and _lot_ to be as here explained. As to the disqualifications, _alms_ means parochial collections or parish relief; and _charity_ signifies sums arising from the revenue of certain specific sums which have been established or bequeathed for the purpose of assisting the poor. There are further nice distinctions in the latter; for on election petitions persons receiving certain defined charities were qualified to vote, while other charities disqualify for the identical return. The burgage tenement decision which defines the nature of this qualification as set down, arose on a controverted election in 1775 for Downeton or Downton, a borough in Wilts, the right of voting being admitted by both sides to be “in persons having a freehold interest in burgage tenements, holden by a certain rent, fealty, and suit of court, of the Bishop of Winchester, who is lord of the borough, and paying reliefs on descent and fines on alienation.” Thomas Duncombe and Thomas Drummer were the sitting members; and the counsel for the petitioners, Sir Philip Hales and John Cooper, objected to some twenty votes recorded for the candidates elected. “It was proved that the conveyances to some were made in 1768, _i.e._ the last general election, but that the deeds had remained since that time in the hands of Mr. Duncombe, who is proprietor of nearly two-thirds of the burgage tenements in Downton; so that the occupiers had continued to pay their rents to him, and expected to do so when they became due again, considering him as their landlord, and being unacquainted with the grants made by him to the voters; and that there were no entries on the court rolls of 1768 of those conveyances, nor of the payment of the alienation fines. The conveyances to others appeared to have been _printed_ at the expense of Mr. Duncombe, and executed after the