be held in the Welsh counties and the county of Chester as in the Counties of England. Out of the consolidated funds compensation was given to the Welsh Judges and persons affected by the abolition of their Courts. The records of the Courts were to be transferred to the Clerks of the Peace of the several Counties. The existing salaries and pensions of the English Judges were fixed by this measure.
Thus the present system of holding Assizes in Wales and Chester was inaugurated. In establishing the new Welsh Circuit two Judges were appointed under the King's Commission to hold the Assizes in Wales, one taking the six counties of South Wales, the other going to the North Wales counties both meeting at Chester for the purpose of holding the Assizes there. There are now two divisions of the Welsh Circuit, forming the "South Wales and Chester Circuit," and the "North Wales and Chester Circuit." Since 1872, owing to the great increase of legal business in Glamorganshire, it has been necessary for both Judges to meet in South Wales as well as at Chester, so both divisions of the Welsh Circuit now meet at the latter city and in Glamorganshire for the holding of the Assizes.
A.D. 1832.—In 1832, an Act to amend the representation of the people in England and Wales (2-3 William 4 c. 45), better known as "the Reform Act," was passed to correct divers abuses that had long prevailed in the choice of members to serve in the House of Commons; to grant electoral privileges to large, populous, and wealthy towns and to deprive many inconsiderable places of the right to return members; to increase the number of Knights of the shire and to extend the elective franchise.
Wales was at that period chiefly an agricultural country, but in Glamorganshire and Monmouthshire the great industries which now exist were beginning to develop,
