"If we exult in the conviction that our free Municipal Institutions are the LONDON WHITING & CO., LIMITED, 30 & 32, SARDINIA STREET, W.C. PREFACE. FOR some time now THE HISTORICAL CHARTERS and CONSTITUTIONAL DOCUMENTS relating to the CITY OF LONDON have attracted the attention of those among us who have been interested in watching the growing and by this time universally admitted desire for the revision and augmentation of the Privileges which this ancient Corporation enjoys. Hence the opportunity seems appropriately to have arisen for giving English readers-whether they be citizens, histo rians, politicians, lawyers, or antiquaries, or simply readers desirous of acquiring general information upon a subject prominently before them, and likely, if we read the direction of popular feeling rightly, to become before long very prominent among the subjects of current legislation-a new and revised edition of the English translation of the City Charters and Documents concerning the constitution of the Corporation. In proof of this fact, so universally admitted, reference may be made if, indeed, proof be required-to a speech made as recently as the 9th of November in 1883, by the Lord Chief Justice, on the occasion of the reception of the new Lord Mayor in accordance with the "Fifth Charter of King John" (see page 19), wherein he is reported to have said: "What may be in store, if anything is in store, in the way of change, for the great Corporation over which you preside, is yet entirely uncertain. Such things must be left where Homer left them, On the knees of the gods;' or as an Englishman would translate it, to the wisdom of Parliament. But this at least may be said, without talking politics, but merely stating facts, that some thirty years ago, when I, from circumstances not necessary to enlarge upon, had official information as to the constitution, the character, and the conduct of that great Corporation, there were some few things which, alike to the friendly inquirer who looked at them with respectful curiosity, and to the hostile critic who subjected them to angry scrutiny, needed, and perhaps demanded, the explanation and defence of which perhaps they were susceptible. Of anything which is very old, and which has lasted for a number of centuries, this must be, and from the necessity of the case must unavoidably be so. I do not doubt, though I have no information on the subject, that in the lapse of time which has taken place since I was more familiarly connected with them, the flaws to which I alluded have disappeared, or are fast disappearing. I do not doubt that the high intelligence which always distinguishes the Corporation of London has taught them that it is only by allowing themselves to be in accord with the spirit of the age, that it is only by approving itself to the high and cultivated intelligence of a great people, that any institution can flourish, perhaps even can survive. I do not doubt that this is perfectly well understood by the Corporation of London, and I have no doubt that if it is so understood by the Corporation of Loudon, that great and illustrious body will continue to flourish in the future as it has flourished in the past, in age as it has flourished in youth, in unabated strength and in undiminished vigour." Mr. SHAW-LEFEVRE, M.P., speaking on the 29th of November, at the annual dinner of the Gladstone Club, in Holborn, is reported to have said that : "It was matter of common information that the Government hoped, intended, and believed that they would carry before they left office the reform of the municipal government of London, the extension of the county franchise, and county government for the rest of England. Those three measures were now struggling for birth. No one could say at present which of them would stand first in order, or which of them would be stillborn; all that they could hope was that, before the present Government went out of office, each and all of them would be carried into law. The extension of the county franchise must inevitably entail, either coincidently or at no great distance of time, a redistribution of seats, and in that question London had a deep and abiding interest. There could be no nobler, no greater task for any statesman than to breathe civic life into the inert mass of London, to bring into harmony its discordant elements of local government, and to give an organisation and an executive equal to the great duties which lay before it. It was impossible that we could have a thorough reform of the water supply, nor could we look forward to the sweeping away of rookeries in our worst regions; nor, again, could we raise to a proper height the lower classes unless a material change in the government of the Metropolis were effected. He attributed the want of public feeling in London to the absence of anything like local government in London; and he believed that when we had a true local government for London, the wealthy classes, as in large provincial towns, would begin to understand that they had duties towards the poorer classes. Belgravia would feel that it had something in common with Whitechapel, Tyburn with Pentonville; and when that was the case, he believed we should see much greater harmony between all classes of the people of this great Metropolis. He believed they should achieve the results they aimed at, and that they would carry these great measures in a manner which would redound to the benefit of the people of England." On the very same day, Sir C. DILKE, M.P., at the annual dinner of the Eleusis Club in Chelsea, said "they had reached the time when several great reforms affecting London, for which the members of this Club had striven for so many years, were about to be undertaken. There was hope even in the next Session of no less than three great measures affecting London being introduced. The two were Parliamentary Reform and Metropolitan Municipal Reform; the third was the Reform of the City Guilds. The Royal Commission was still sitting, and as his colleague, from his position as a member of the Commission, was unable to speak of its deliberations, he (Sir Charles) would speak from expressions which had reached him, although not from Mr. Firth. He understood they would recommend immediate legislation. He hoped that that would be the case. The drift of the |