even a private house for the short period during which it would be required.
In the cases of parish school-rooms, or National or British schools, a small payment of a guinea or two for the hire of the room for a day would often be thankfully added to the subscriptions by which the institution is sustained. In order to obviate all doubts which trustees and others may entertain as to their powers for so harmless an enlargement of the purposes of the edifice, a compulsory power might very properly be given to the returning officer to use the building for a single day. It may be thus expressed:—
XVI. The returning officer for every electoral district is empowered, at a general election, to take and use as a polling-place to be occupied for that purpose during the day of election, but no longer, upon giving seven days' notice of his intention to that effect, any room or rooms of competent space in any school-house or other building supported wholly or in part by any public or parochial funds, or by any perpetual endowment, or which has been built or is supported wholly or in part by any grant under the control of the Committee of Council for Education; and he shall pay a reasonable sum for the hire of such room or place, together with the full cost of repairing any injury or damage which may be occasioned to the premises or the furniture thereof by the said use, such hire and damages, in the event of the returning officer and the managers or trustees or owners of the said premises differing about the same, to be settled by two justices of the peace, one to be chosen by the returning officer, and the other by the said trustees, managers, or owners.
The schoolmasters of the National and British Schools who would be liberated for the day from their duties, would form a class in which very intelligent clerks would be found to assist in the reception of the votes: they are not often so well paid as to make the remuneration for their extra services on that day unacceptable. The pupil teachers would in many cases also be competent and useful assistants; nor would attention to duties of this nature be in any case undeserving of regard as an element of education. Every vote, it will be remembered, is expressed on a document, which remains as a record, and there is no room for error on the part of the
