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A curious instance is on record of the royal assent having been given to a bill by mistake. This is said to have occurred in 1844, when one of two railway bills, which had not passed through all its stages in the House of Lords, by an accident, received the assent intended for the bill which had com plied with all formalities. This strange over sight necessitated the passage of a special statute to rectify matters. It is not generally known, even in England, that in 1876, when the Queen was about to visit the continent of Europe, some doubts were expressed as to whether she could le gally give her consent to bills by Commission during her absence. No case could be found in which the assent had been so given, but it was ascertained that during the reign of William and Mary this contingency had been provided for to the effect that " nothing should be taken to exclude or debar His Majesty from the exercise of any act or royal power, but that every such act should be as good and effectual as if His Majesty were within the realm." Queen Victoria was, therefore, advised that she would be able to give her assent to bills while absent from the United Kingdom, and several acts received the royal assent under these unique condi tions. A few remarks as to the "omnipotence" of the British Parliament may not be out of

place here. First, the word Parliament in cludes the Sovereign, the House of Lords and the House of Commons. In many coun tries, including British colonies, the legisla ture is a limited body, which exercises the powers conferred upon it by a written con stitution; its acts are void if they exceed its powers. The Parliament of the United King dom, upon the other hand, defines its own powers and is not bound by any written con stitution. No law court can revise its acts of any kind whatsoever. In the words of Sir Edward Coke, the power of Parliament '' is so transcendent and absolute that it can not be confined, either for causes or persons, within any bounds." The Septennial Act (1714), which limits the life of a Parliament to seven years, illustrates what is meant by the omnipotence of the three bodies which constitute the British government. A House of Commons, elected for three years under the Triennial Act of 1694, concurred in pro longing its own mandate to a period of seven years; and its action was perfectly legal and constitutional. Whether the United King dom, and the British Empire generally, would benefit by bringing the powers of Parliament within legal bounds by substituting a written constitution for an unwritten one, is a ques tion upon which the writer dare not venture to express an opinion.