before any parliamentary relief was asked. It was now decided to adopt the same policy in regard to a seat in Parliament itself. A Jewish candidate, Lionel de Rothschild, was elected as one of the four members of Parliament for the City of London in 1847 but could not take his seat without taking a Christian oath of office, and the bill that was introduced on 16 December that year was intended to carry out the wishes of a definite English constituency. This passed its third reading in the Commons on 4 May 1848, by a majority of 62 votes, but was rejected in the Lords by 163 non-contents to 128 contents. The same thing happened in 1849 when Lionel de Rothschild was again elected, but in the following year the struggle took on another and more dramatic form. David Salomons, who had successfully fought the battle for the shrievalty and the aldermanic chair, had been elected member for Greenwich and insisted on taking his seat, refusing to withdraw on being ordered to do so by the speaker, and adding to his offence by voting in the division on the motion for adjournment which was made to still the uproar caused by his bold course of action. The prime minister, Lord John Russell, moved that Salomons be ordered to withdraw, and on that motion Salomons spoke in a dignified and forcible manner, and won the sympathy of the House, which nevertheless passed the Prime Minister's motion. The matter was then referred to the law courts, which decided that Salomons had no right to vote without having taken the oath of abjuration in the form appointed by Parliament, and fined him £500 for each vote he had recorded in the Commons. The government then brought in another bill in 1853, which was also rejected by the Lords. In 1855, Salomons was elected Lord Mayor of London. In the following two years, bills were introduced by the government to modify the parliamentary oath, but they failed to obtain the assent of the Lords. In 1858 when the Oath Bill reached the Lords they eliminated the clause relating to Jews; but when the bill was referred again to the Commons, the lower house refused to accept it as amended, and appointed a committee to formulate its reasons, upon which committee, as if to show the absurdity of the situation, the member for the