It may be remarked, that the annual election of one-third of the council is a mischievous mode of proceeding. There is always a talk about the excitement of the people, and a great dread is pretended of this popular commotion. Read the history of mankind, however, and ascertain how often has evil fallen upon states, in consequence of popular apathy as compared with popular commotion. The truth is, that men are not easily to be stirred up by those evils which result from misgovernment, unless the evil takes some horrible and horror-striking form. The silent sapping of popular controul, by the quiet machinations of interested officers, seldom alarms the people in time. Men see the evil, but the amount of it to themselves, at any given moment, is small. They look not forward to ascertain the evils that will accumulate in time, rest contented with their condition, and

"Rather bear those ills they have, Than fly to others which they know not of." Therefore, to me, it appears unwise to dread the excitement of the people, or to take means to suppress and keep it down. Public spirit is a plant that requires fostering. The legislature should endeavour to force, not check its growth. I therefore desire to see the whole of the town council annually elected.

I will speak of the recorder and the administration of justice when I come to discuss the powers to be exercised by the municipal government.

The next great matter is the nature of the elective, or, as it is sometimes called, the constituent body. The bill provides that the old corporations shall cease on the 25th day of October next, meaning, by that, not only that the old mayor and aldermen should for ever go out of office, but that the body, which, in these strongholds of corruption, were called by the various names of freemen, burgesses, commonalty, &c., should also

Whigs, against the most earnest entreaty of their friends during the passing of the Reform Bill, adhered to this mischievous regulation in that enactment. The consequence we all have seen. The power of the Tories was only for the moment suppressed. They have arisen with new strength, and corruption has stalked abroad, and has again terrified. the land. This provision not only goes to disfranchise many an honest man, but it enables a dishonest one to get a price for his vote. There are now, in most places, Tory clubs. These clubs have money at command: a man, not having paid his rates, goes to this club, and says, "If you will pay up my rates I will vote for you. If you do not, I shall either not pay my rates, or, if I pay, shall vote for the opposite party." The man's rates are paid for him, and his vote is sold for ever. A traffic in votes will soon follow, and there will be a strong tendency in the new corporations to become as corrupt as the old ones. One year's rating also would be quite enough. It will be found that even, with this exception, the constituency will be fatally small; and, did I not believe that the spirit and intelligence of the people were daily advancing, I should fear that this reform was only a temporary release from evil. Having faith, however, in the growing information of the mass of the people, believing that we are steadily moving onward, I

hail the breaking up of the old strongholds of mischief with delight. Before any fresh evil can be permanently reestablished, the people will have learned its extent and the remedy, and, as their power is daily increasing, if they demand the remedy, it must be granted.

§ III.

I now proceed to discuss the extent of the powers of this Municipal Government, and the mode in which they are to be distributed.

The powers of every such government are of necessity-legislative, administrative and judicial; and I should have been glad if the ministry had determined to keep all these separate, and to have passed a general law, by which they should be rendered alike in all the coporations of the country. This, I allow, would have been a difficult task, and I sometime since anticipated that the ministry and their legal advisers would be unequal to it.

"Thus, again, powers for the due lighting of towns, and supplying the inhabitants with water, should be entrusted to the corporations. At present, an act of the imperial parliament is required before a gas or water pipe can be laid down for the use of the inhabitants. Immense expense is thus incurred, and enormous injury often inflicted on the poor. In this case it is evident no interest can be affected but those of the inhabitants themselves; and here, therefore, if in no other instance, the power we contend for ought to be entrusted to them. What is now done as a job by parties interested only for themselves, or a small body of em. ployers, would, under the system proposed, be made the business of the corporation governments; which, as we shall immediately show, can be, and ought to be made responsible to the great body of the inhabitants, over whose interests they are set to watch. In the same way all the public charities-and, advancing one step further-all institutions of education supported by the people, should be in a great degree, under their immediate and direct control. All public markets also, all matters of police, come necessarily under the same inanagement. In short, everything affecting the well being of the neighbourhood, considered merely as a neighbourhood, and unconnected either with the nation generally, or the districts or neighbourhoods immediately surrounding, ought to be considered as the business, and coming within the field, of corporate administration. From the incomplete list of these matters here given, it must be evident, that much care and knowledge would be required to make an accurate and scientific classi

To

fication of the rights to be conferred, and the obligations to be imposed on the Municipal Governments; so that a general rule might he framed and put into the form of a law. draw correctly and distinctly the line between these various small jurisdictions, and the general government, would demand no ordinary proficiency in the science of legislation; that is so to draw it, that a complete conception of the whole field of their jurisdiction could be attained by an instructed man, on a perusal of the laws. It would be easy to perform the task in the ordinary clumsy mode of English legislation, in which difficulties are avoided only by putting them off to be settled by expensive and doubtful judicial decisions. Any English Act of Parliament which shall regulate the extent of Corporation jurisdictions will, doubtless, contain a confused, illogical, and incomplete list of the powers conferred; an attempt at an enumeration will be made, and appended to it will be a drag-net to catch any forgotten or stray rights which may have escaped the detail, in a shape, perhaps, like the following: And all other rights, powers, privileges, or immunities, necessary to the due and proper discharge of the several functions above enumerated.' What 'rights, powers, privileges, &c.' may be so necessary, will lie hidden in the womb of time, till a judgment of a court of law shall give them birth; so that we shall now come to the end of the list. The decision of the courts will never do more than settle the matter immediately in dispute; and on every fresh emergency, a new suit and new decision will be requisite. To avoid these mischiefs by a previous, complete and exhaustive classification of the rights and obligations necessary to the end in view, will, we fear, never suggest itself to those whose business it will be to prepare a bill for the consideration of the legislature. To do so would appear too much like the conduct of a philosopher; and a philosoper, as every blockhead is supposed to know, and always asserts, is not a practical man. The practical men are the drag-net framers-men to whom nothing suggests itself but what a narrow experience teaches men who never use thoughts to learn what may happen, but who are content to task their own memory to remember what has happened. They put down a confused list of particulars, in the order in which their memory supplies them; and then complacently crown their work by the capital contrivance of a wide generality, which, as it distinctly specifies nothing, may, upon occasion, be made to specify anything. After this manner have all our laws hitherto been fashioned. Would that we could reasonably hope that, in the case of Corporation Reform, science was about to assume its proper function, and order and logic to occupy the place of a confused and disorderly enumeration!"-London Review: Article on Municipal Corporation Reform.

If, as I here suggested, one general law had been passed giving the same powers to all the corporations of the kingdom, much confusion would have been avoided. Now, according to the provisions of this new bill, all the diffi

of the various powers possessed by the Municipal government. From thence it will be seen, that the town council are a legislative body, for they have the power to make bye-laws. They are an administrative body, for they not only appoint officers, but in committees, the councillors themselves transact much of the town business. The mayor is a legislator, as councillor; he is an administrative and judicial officer, as justice of the peace, and head of the police. All this mixing of duties is mischievous. The town council ought to have had the power of making byelaws, and of appointing all the officers of the town. These officers would have had separate and distinct duties, and all of them ought to have been paid, and justice should have been administered by one efficient and instructed judge, who, if chosen by the crown, ought to have been removable at the express desire of the town council. Why the mayor should, ex-officio, be a justice and a judge I cannot divine. He is to be chosen annually. Suppose we

Existing provisions for watching to cease, and accoutrements, &c. to be relinquished to the new establishment.

Town councils in certain boroughs to appoint a coroner; county coroners to act in other boroughs.

JUDICIAL INSTITUTIONS AND OFFICERS.

Recorders (barristers-at-law of five years' standing) to be appointed by the crown in certain boroughs, if town councils petition for quarter sessions; with powers to such recorders to act for more than one borough. Recorder to be justice of the peace for the borough and its vicinity; not to be councillor or police magistrate; to be sole judge at quarter sessions.

Criminal jurisdiction; power to try capital offences wholly abolished; limited to quartersessions; capital offenders sent to county assizes.

No new civil courts created; those existing to retain their old constitutions, except that recorder or mayor be sole judge; jurisdiction extended to personal actions to sum of 20%.; when below that amount, judge to make rules; council to appoint registrar, and "other nccessary officers" of the court.

Burgesses to be jurors and summoned by clerk of peace and registrar of civil court, under fine; exemptions from serving on county juries; regulations in regard to fees; regulations of summary jurisdiction under the Act.

have a fresh mayor every year, and thus behold we have the past renewed in the future. The mayor will not be the judge-it is the mayor's clerk that will really exercise the high functions of that office, under-hand and without responsibility.

A mayor coming to

the performance of new duties of which he is ignorant, is necessarily driven for instruction and advice to the town clerk, and when at the end of his mayoralty he has acquired sufficient knowledge to encrease his usefulness, a new mayor is appointed, whose instruction also depends upon the same person, namely the town clerk. An instructed tradesman would make a very good mayor, but what does he know of law, and of the weighing of evidence? His life has been passed in acquiring other knowledge, and a life is required to make a good judge. A peculiar training of the mind is needed for it, peculiar studies and long custom and exercise. You know what fine judges your apothecaryaldermen make-putting aside their injustice, look at their perfect inaptitude. They may be able to bleed and purge; (though there are very few of them that I would trust to perform either office for me) but what, I ask, in the name of common sense can they know of law? Mr George, the town-clerk, is really the mayor and aldermen of Bath, as far as regards administering justice. Indeed, there be many heads in the corporation, but, spite of the proverb respecting many heads, I in this case should be much better content with one instructed one. The corporation in this multitudinous capacity go in procession to church, they also in the same multitudinous capacity feast at your expense. Their numbers, too, I allow make them a multiplied nuisance, but spite of all this, one person, and one person alone judges, and that person is the irresponsible town-clerk, Mr George.

There can be no objection to the

Crown choosing a recorder for the borough, provided that he should be removeable at the desire of the town council. This last, however, is not to be allowed; and you will have little security beyond publicity for the due administration of justice, even if you should determine to have a recorder. If you do not so determine, the administration of justice is almost intirely in the control of that immaculate body, the Justices of the county,* from whose

As an illustration of the oppressive character of the administration of justice in our corporate towns, take the following recent decisions of the Bath Courts of Requests, as reported in the Guardian :

"To return again to the Bath Court of Requests in this city. Two other cases have come under our observation in this court, both showing, if correctly stated, how oppressive this court still is to the really poor and destitute. The maximum of imprisonment is yet in all cases given. A very decent looking widow woman has been imprisoned for twenty days, under the name of Elizabeth Maggs, which she has not borne since 1826, her real name being Lane, of Twerton. She had incurred a debt of 11s. 5., according to the prosecutor, which she denies, and says she has no doubt the things, if had at all, were had by some one else who used the name: she would swear she never had them. If we understood her rightly, the debt was incurred during the lifetime of her husband; several years ago, at all events, which frees her from liability. She was from home when the summons of the court was served at her house; and on her return she thought it was something relative to others, not herself. She never was in court to be heard at all, but was taken from her family of seven children, and incarcerated for twenty days, her family of young children being left to run wild, or starve, having no longer parental care. She has fourteen days to remain. Debt, 11s. 5d. ; costs, 12s. 6d.”

"Another case, which says little for human nature, is that of a poor old man named Porter, aged 84, and completely helpless, the whole of one side being paralyzed, and he having been long incapable of dressing or undressing himself. He has been torn from his aged wife, who waited upon him, and flung into prison at the suit of R. King, for 4l. 4s. 24d., and costs 1. Is. 6d., and he is to pay this by 100 days' incarceration! A miserable wreck of humanity, on the brink of the grave, is thus to satisfy his creditor's demand, if death does not sooner sign his quittance of life and debt together. This is not all, the creditor agreed to take the amount of the debt of a third party, who owed the old man wages, and thus Porter considered the matter balanced, for the account was of old standing; but the creditor neglected to receive the money, and the party from whom he was to get it in the end going away, he comes back upon the aged and helpless old

justice I pray sincerely to be for ever carefully defended. Until a system of local courts be introduced, we cannot hope for any thing like a cheap and efficient administration of the law. This system must soon come, spite of interested opposition. When the people have learned duly to appreciate its value, they will demand it in a way that cannot be resisted.

All the various commissioners, also, who have powers within the city, are to be superseded by the town council, if they (the commissioners) should so choose. I had hoped that they would have been compelled to have resigned their powers to the town council. The council ought to have the power of choosing certain persons to perform the duties of the several commissioners, and of removing such persons, should it be deemed expedient. This ought to have been extended to all the commissioners in the town.

Such, Gentlemen, are some of the

creature, puts him into the immaculate Court of Requests, and they give him the maximum of the law. There had been no fraud, the creditor had neglected the means of paymentbut no matter! It appears that the wife had the care of an idiot, and received twenty-five pounds a year for the office, on which they lived, idiot and all, with a small parish allowance besides. How was this poor creature to answer a debt of four pounds out of a sum so received, and, most likely, in driblets too? Could Porter have lived with his wife and the idiot upon the money thus allowed, the parish would not have added a trifle weekly. Eight or nine pounds per head per annum for the support of aged helplessness can, no doubt, afford four or five pounds to meet such a demand! Now is such a court not a grinder of the poor, a great addition to the calamities incident to humanity, and a perversion of the intention of a court of equity, which is bound to arrange, as much as possible, for the common good by the law of conscience? Of itself it takes good care, for, debtor or creditor suffer, the court clutches its fees, and is equally unrelenting and excessive in its punishments. The truth is, the Court must be put down by Parliament. If no sense of common feeling actuate it, if it will not fulfil the ends for which it exists in a proper manner, it must be knocked on the head, carrying with it alike the wellearned anathema of the poor and needy, and of the humane and charitable. Why has it not acted like other courts of a similar namegiven time, or softened the severity of creditors, and settled debts by instalment ?"