Such awkward incidents, however, are very uncommon. The returning officer, at the conclusion of the count, has usually no other duty to discharge than publicly to declare the candidate to whom the majority of votes was given duly elected to Parliament, and he sends forthwith the return to the writ of election, bearing the name of the successful candidate, to the Clerk of the Crown at Westminster. The voting papers, the counterfoils, the marked copies of the register of voters, and all other official documents relating to the election, are also made up in a bag and sealed by the returning officer and forwarded to the Crown Office. To give an idea of the enormous amount of official papers used at a General Election, I have been told at the Crown Office that they weigh from 22 to 25 tons. In case there might be a demand for a scrutiny and recount of the voting papers in any constituency, or a petition presented to declare the return null and void under the Corrupt Practices Act, all these documents are stored in the cellars of the Crown Office for a year and a day before they are destroyed. The writs are kept by the Clerk of the Crown until the Parliament is dissolved, when they are sent to the Public Record Office, where they are preserved. 5 A candidate declared elected by the returning officer, but whose return is questioned by petition, takes the oath and his seat in the House of Commons and serves in the usual course until the report of the two Judges who tried the petition is delivered to the Speaker and is by him communicated to the House. Jesse Collings, in January, 1886, as Member for Ipswich, while a petition against his return was pending, which resulted in his being unseated for reasons for which he was personally blameless, moved and carried the small holdings resolution, the famous “three acres and a cow,” which defeated Lord Salisbury’s Government and brought back to power again the Liberals under Gladstone. I remember a petition arising out of a contest at Exeter in the General Election of 1910 which had a curious result. The Liberal candidate was declared returned by a majority of four. The Judges who tried the petition disallowed five votes for the Liberal given by five men who were held to have been unlawfully employed as bill distributors during the election, and accordingly the seat was given to the Conservative candidate by a majority of one. On the day the decision of the Judges was announced by the Speaker I witnessed a very uncommon incident. This was the appearance of the wigged and gowned Clerk of the Crown, bringing the return to the writ for the Exeter election, and at the Table, in the presence of the Speaker and the Commons, amending the return by substituting “H. E. Duke” for “H. St. Maur” as the Member to serve for the borough. Immediately afterwards Mr. Duke took his seat in the House. 6