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45. Before reading each bill, the clerk shall announce whether it is the first, second, or third time of reading the bill.

46. Any person contesting the election of a senator returned to serve in the Senate, will be entitled to receive his wages only from the day on which such person is declared duly elected.

47. No senator shall be taken into custody by the sergeant-at-arms on any complaint of breach of privilege until the matter is examined by the committee of privileges and elections and reported to the Senate, unless by order of the Senate.

48. No petition of a private nature, having been once rejected, shall be acted on a second time, unless it be supported by new evidence; nor shall any such petition, after a third disallowance, be again acted on. The several clerks of committees shall keep alphabetical lists of all such petitions, specifying the sessions at which they were presented, and the determination of the Senate thereon; and shall deliver the original petition to the clerk of the Senate, to be preserved in his office.

49. No petition shall be received, claiming a sum of money or praying the settlement of unliquidated accounts, unless it be accompanied with the certificate of disallowance from the executive or auditor, containing the reason why it was rejected. But this order shall extend to no person applying for a pen

sion.

50. When any such petition, or bill founded on one, is rejected, such petition shall not be withdrawn; but the petitioner, or senator presenting his petition, or any senator from the county or corporation in which the petitioner resides, may, without leave, withdraw any document filed therewith, and a list of all documents so withdrawn shall be preserved by the clerk. All petitions not finally acted on may, with the accompanying documents, be in like manner withdrawn after the expiration of the session at which they were presented.

51. No petition shall be read in the Senate unless particularly requested by some senator; but every senator presenting one, shall announce the name of the petitioner, nature of the application, and whether, in his opinion, a similar application had been before made by said petitioner. He shall also endorse on the back of the petition his own name as a pledge that it is drawn in respectful language; whereupon it shall be delivered to the clerk, by whom it shall be laid before the proper committee.

52. The committee to examine the clerk's office shall see that all papers belonging thereto are properly filed, labelled, and put away in the presses, and that the books belonging to the office are chronologically arranged, and shall make an annual report thereof to the Senate.

53. The clerks of the Senate and House of Delegates may interchange messages at such time between the hour of adjournment and that of meeting on the following day as that the said messages may be read immediately after the orders of the day.

54. It shall be the duty of the doorkeeper of the Senate to preserve, in chronological or numerical order, a copy of every printed document distributed in the Senate, and to deliver the same, at the close of the session, to the clerk of the Senate, whose duty it shall be to have them bound and preserved in his office for the use of this body.

55. No bill of a private or local character shall be taken up for consideration out of its place on the calendar, unless two-thirds of those voting shall concur in such proposition.

56. Whenever the Senate proceeds to consider any nominations of the governor, which are subject to the choice or ratification of the Senate, the same shall be considered in executive session, with closed doors, and the proceedings thereon shall be secret, unless the injunction of secrecy, be removed by a vote of the Senate.

57. At the commencement of each session, the President shall appoint four pages, who shall receive for their services three dollars per day each.

58. In order to prevent interruption of the business of the Senate, the doorkeeper shall be constantly at his post during the sessions of the Senate, and shall admit within the chamber no person except officers of the government of this and any other state, and of the United States; members and ex-members of Congress and House of Delegates; their officers; ex-members of the Senate of Virginia; ministers of the gospel, and reporters of the proceedings of the Senate; but ladies and their escorts may be assigned privileged seats. It shall be the duty of the doorkeeper to show all persons not entitled to privileged seats to the gallery. It shall be his duty, when any person desires an interview with a senator or the President, or the clerk of the Senate, to send a message to him, and such person may be admitted to one of the privileged seats, if so invited by either of them. And the President of the Senate shall, moreover, be permitted to invite to a seat near the chair any person he may deem worthy of such distinction.

59. No senator shall be allowed to be interrupted while speaking, even with his own consent, except on points of order, to correct erroneous statements, or to answer any questions that may be propounded by the senator speaking.

60. No senator shall be allowed to vote unless he be present within the chamber at the time the Senate is being divided, or before the determination of the question upon a call of the roll.

61. When a bill seeking relief or for an act of incorporation is referred to a standing committee of the Senate, the committee shall examine whether the object can be attained by application to the courts under the general laws; and if so, it shall be the duty of the committee to report that it shall not pass unless there be special reasons for its consideration by the

general assembly. And no variation of maximum capital or quantity of land which the courts are authorized to empower corporations to hold, not shown to be indispensably necessary to the objects of the corporation, shall be deemed by the committee as exempting the bill from the operation of laws conferring on the courts the power of granting charters or affording relief.

62. The clerk of the Senate shall, at each session, have printed and bound with the manual of rules, &c., the constitution of Virginia, for the use of sen

ators.

CONSTITUTION.

Whereas, the delegates and representatives of the good people of Virginia, in convention assembled, on the twenty-ninth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-six, reciting and declaring, that whereas George the Third, king of Great Britain and Ireland, and elector of Hanover, before that time entrusted with the exercise of the kingly office in the government of Virginia, had endeavored to pervert the same into a detestable and insupportable tyranny, by putting his negative on laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good; by denying his governors permission to pass laws, of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation for his assent, and when so suspended, neglecting to attend to them for many years; by refusing to pass certain other laws, unless the persons to be benefited by them would relinquish the inestimable right of representation in the legislature; by dissolving legislative assemblies repeatedly and continually, for opposing with manly firmness, his invasions of the rights of the people; when dissolved, by refusing to call others for a long space of time, thereby leaving the political system without any legislative head; by endeavoring to prevent the population of our country, and for that purpese obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; by keeping among us, in time of peace, standing armies and ships of war; by affecting to render the military independent of and superior to

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