Although rights of incorporation are now granted to guilds, companies, or other associations, a town is never incorporated as such, but only certain associations and certain departments therein. The town itself formerly constituting, like a hundred with its court-leet, a mere political community governed without corporate rights, ceasing, by reason of the charters granted, to be a political combination, became a mere social aggregation. The political body, constituted by the act of corporation, and which simply serves as the ground-work of the corporation, consists of a mayor, or bailiff, aldermen, and common councilmen ; at times also of certain wealthy citizens, who, under a certain style or title,-e. gr. "The Mayor and Burgesses of,”—form the corporation, and manage the municipal business. In relation to such oligarchy, the mass of the burgesses was nothing but a "misera contribuens plebs ;" wherever the charter did not create such an oligarchy, the aristocratic current of the period, or the arbitrary pressure of the government effected the mischief. Under the shadow of such oligarchic rule, numerous honorary "freemen" gradually insinuated themselves into the towns, without being subjected to any municipal burthens whatsoever. Ultimately a small governing body, with or without aristocratic organization, usurped the enjoyment of the municipal property, and shut out the great mass of the tax-payers from the town government and privileges. Just as every parish, and every political aggregation, the town officials, conjointly with the right of incorporation, received the privilege of issuing bye-laws.* Whereas this privilege in the parish and in the county had fallen into desuetude, it was newly established in favour of corporate towns; the bye-laws of the latter being binding even on third parties, provided they are not in contravention of law, non contra leges, non irrationabiles. All town enactments in restraint of trade were accounted illegal. The rules of workmen's guilds were always to be ratified by the sovereign. In the year 1180, in London alone, not less than fifteen guilds were fined for having passed bye-laws without the royal ratification. Henry VII. insisted anew on the necessity of the royal ratification, and transferred the exercise of this perogative to the lord chancellor (19 Hen. VII. c. 7). The regulations of every corporation, to have binding force, were to be examined by * Vincke, 72. + Wilda, 250. the lord chancellor, lord high treasurer, or judges of the King's Bench or Common Pleas.* The parliament was not more graciously inclined towards the autonomic legislation of the towns and boroughs than the Plantagenets, Tudors, or Stuarts. The practice of the courts has likewise stringently controlled the exercise of the privilege of passing bye-laws, excepting where held by prescription, the proof thereof to be deducible from the time of Richard I. Charters of incorporation frequently grant police administration and direction for the maintenance of the peace, apart from that of the county; in such case, however, the corporations remain subject to the right of appeal to the quarter sessions, and are subordinate to the sheriff. Eighteen towns (eleven English cities and five boroughs, with two towns in Wales) constitute special "counties corporate," the town functionaries administering the office of sheriff. Under Charles II. the remains of the old popular elements were everywhere eliminated from the town constitutions, which latter were replaced by "governing charters," by which it was sought to control all municipal operations. Most of the new order of charters gave to small councils-of express royal appointment and indissoluble self-elective powers-the privilege of local government, and even, in many cases, of election of parliamentary representatives.† Informations, quo warranto, were, in Charles's reign, brought against several corporations, and a still greater number voluntarily surrendered their privileges: the judges had decided that the misuse of power in a corporation incurred a sentence of forfeiture; and as there were few corporations that had duly exercised their power in every respect, they were placed at the mercy of the crown. The corporations, in place of their old, received new charters, granting constitutions of an oligarchic type, and reserving to the crown the first appointment of those who were to form the governing part of the corporation. After the revolution a bill was introduced, restoring the corporations to their former privileges, into which the Whigs, to secure their power, endeavoured to introduce a clause excluding from municipal offices of trust, for the space of seven years, all who had acted or even concurred in surrendering the charters. "The royal and * Crabb, 426. + Miss Martineau, ii. 237. aristocratic power over the commonalty was not overthrown even by the revolution; for subsequent charters were framed upon the models of those of the Charleses and Jameses; and the charters of George III. do not differ in this respect from those granted in the worst period of the history of these boroughs."* "The evil of municipal corruption had become well nigh intolerable for a long course of years. The corporate officers elected and re-elected themselves and each other for ever; the trust funds which should have healed the sick, and sheltered the old, and instructed the young, were employed in bribing a depraved class of electors; the functionaries made the constituency, and the constituency in return appointed the functionaries; so that if a sufficient number of corrupt and indolent men could be got into league, they could do what they pleased with the powers and funds of the borough. To those who felt that the welfare of a nation depends on its public and private virtue, who saw that the private vice of a community was found to be in substantial accordance with its municipal corruption, and who looked back through this avenue of history so as to perceive how low our people had sunk from the municipal freedom and purity of long preceding ages, it was consolatory to read the bold exposure made by the commissioners who had been appointed to inquire into the giant abuses. They report: "Even where these institutions exist in their least imperfect form, and are most rightfully administered, they are inadequate to the wants of the present state of society. In their actual condition, where not productive of evil, they exist, in a great majority of instances, for no purpose of general utility. The perversion of municipal institutions to political ends has occasioned the sacrifice of local interests to party purposes, which have been frequently pursued through the corruption and demoralization of the electoral bodies. There prevails among the inhabitants of a great majority of the incorporated towns a general and, in our opinion, a just dissatisfaction with their municipal institutions, a distrust of the self-elected municipal councils, whose powers are subjected to no popular control, and whose acts and proceedings being secret, are unchecked by the influence of public opinion; a distrust of the municipal magistracy, tainting with suspicion the local administration of justice, and often accompanied by contempt *Miss Martineau, ii. 237. of the persons by whom the law is administered; a discontent under the burthens of local taxation, while revenues that ought to be applied for the public advantage are diverted from their legitimate use, and are sometimes wastefully bestowed for the benefit of individuals, sometimes squandered for purposes injurious to the character and morals of the people. We therefore feel it to be our duty to represent to your majesty that the existing municipal corporations of England and Wales neither possess nor deserve the confidence and respect of your majesty's subjects, and that a thorough reform must be effected before they can become useful and efficient instruments of local government." "The opposition was incalculable, and might have been supposed unmanageable; the means of getting up such opposition lay mainly in the hands of those whose corruption was to be exposed, and whose gains were to be abolished. In the worst towns there was the strongest body of corrupt or bigotted officials who hold the worst portion of the inhabitants under their control, while those who most desired reform were precisely those who were least in a position to make themselves heard. The noble-minded operative who had refused £50 for his vote was borne down by the noisy tipsy freeman, whose "loyalty" was very profitable to him. "The benevolent and painstaking quiet citizen, who strongly suspected that the funds of an orphan girls' school went to support a brothel, or who could never obtain admission to a charity trust, because it was supposed that he would remonstrate against the frequent banquets at the expense of the trust; the peaceable dissenter, who found himself put aside in times of public danger, because the loyal corporation charged him with wishing to burn down the cathedral; the unexceptionable tradesman, who found himself cut out by the idle and unskilful, because they had corporation connection-such men as these had no chance of being heard against the sharp and unscrupulous lawyers, the pompous aldermen, the rabble of venal voters, and the compact body of town contractors, who clamoured, as for life, for the maintenance of things as they were. What could the plaints of the sick, and the aged, and the orphan, and the indignation of the disinterested, and the protest of the excluded, and the appeal of the obscure, do amidst the hubbub of desperate wrong-doers and exasperated haters of change? Hitherto they could do nothing but complain; but now they might hope, and they could speak. In every cor porate town sat men sent on purpose to hear all that could be told. Great was the consternation at first, and fiercer grew the threats and clamour, every day, from the highest to the lowest."* But despite the turbulence of opposition and the clash of "vested interests," the flagrant abuses and corruption were to be swept away; and, by a recurrence to the true old municipal principle of election, ancient rights were to be restored, ancient charities renovated, schools and asylums were to rise again, and coffers be filled with money restored to the purposes of the needy, and our country planted over with little republics where the citizens would henceforth be trained to political thought and public virtue.† * Miss Martineau, ii. 238. + lbid. 245. |