date

1821. April 2 d. Rid Yourselves.
1821. April 2 d.

Rid Yourselves.

Ultramarian Deputat n. none.

On this occasion, as before, recurrs the perplexity about the Election Districts: the difficulty of conceiving by what persons, and on other accounts by what means, and in what mode, they can be made. Look, on this occasion, to Art. 32. In each Province, it is supposed that somebody, no intimation is given who, placed /seated/ on some eminence from which the whole population of the province, called before him for that purpose, are stationed within his view, begins with dividing them into groups of 70,000 human beings of both sexes taken together, or of 70,000 human beings of the male sex, with the portion of females appertaining to them, and says to them, you shall constitute the population of one district, naming the district at the time or not naming it. This done, and the number of Election Districts thus determined, the whole surface of the province, land and water together, being, at this same time, under his view, and the view of the whole population thus assembled, he takes compasses in hand, and marking out the surface of the whole province into as many Election districts as he has constituted Election groups, he denominates the districts supposed by the letters of the alphabet giving, at the same time, correspondent denominations to the several groupes, and says to them - You /Ye/ of the groupe A, go into Election District A, to which you shall accordingly henceforward belong and give your votes: ye of the group B. go ye into Election District B, and so on, through as many letters as the allotment requires.

This sort of arrangement, how commodious soever, being unfortunately not a possible one, what other arrangement is there that the Code prescribes or admitts of? None such, I must acknowledge, have I been able to find.

As a ground for the formation of Election Districts within its Province, the provincial deputation, supposing it in existence, may proceed so far as to take or cause to be taken the census, i.e. the account of the population of the province: But, supposing this advance made, who it is that by means of this same Instrument Census, can proceed to determine the number of the Election Districts within that province, and to mask them out, either upon the ground, or upon a Map, this is what I have not been able to find.
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  • Title: [1821 April 1 Rid Yourselves]
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  • Title: [1821 April 1. Rid yourselves.]
    Description: 1821 April 1.

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    Male & female together, after deducting the number produced by all the disqualifications created by all those qualifications which we have seen with their exceptions, where shall we find the several groups of 70,000, by each of which a deputy to the Cortes may be sent? To this question an answer is furnished by Art. 30. For the population of the European dominions says that article, shall serve for the computation of the population, the latest census (viz) "that of the year 1797 until a new one shall have been capable of being taken."

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