The Express.
London, England, 1853-11-14 00:00:00

have rendered it in some measure independent of
the Crown. This may surprise many who are not
acquainted with the history of municipal institutions
both here and on the continent, but the fact is
patent enough to all who have consulted the early
charters of the City and other corporations. It ap•
pears at the first reading of these, that the '
cities treated, as independent powers, with
the sovereigus who granted or confirmed '
the charters. In one of the earliest,—that
granted to the citizens of London by the Cos-
QUEROR,—we may see this. WILLI tx confirms the
citizens in all their ancient privileges, and adds a
clause which goes to the effect of establishing or con-
firming the right of hereditary succession. This is
addressed to the officers representing the corporation.
Now, the very treating rights like these as privileges
shows clearly that the citizens had acquired some.
thing which other classes had not. The fact
I was. that no one, with few exceptions, had the
rights of a man in those times, except those
who held land directly of the King, or
indirectly from the barons, and those who, by club-
bing their forces together as a corporation, attained
that right as a collective unity, which as atoms they
were unable to enforce. The King claimed a limited
military service from a certain number of holders of
land who, saving this obligation, were freemen.
The population around them were mere serfs, having
no property either in themselves, their children, or
the paltry substance they had gathered together. A
town, by its collective strength, was enabled to claim
and exercise the privileges which every individual
possessed on his own lands. A simple citizen was
powerful as an inhabitant of a town which had
strength enough to claim corporate rights,—but in-
dividually he was nothing. Getzor, in one of his
treatises, treats very graphically the imaginary case
of a resuscitated inhabitant of one of the old corpo-
rations entering his ancient dwelling place at the
present day. Ile pictures his dismay at the defenceless
state of the citizens without walls,without closed gates.
without fortifications of any kind. He would trem-
ble at the strange unwarlike appearance of the place.
Where, he would ask, are the precautions to
keep out baronial or royal enemies ? Where are the
guards at the gates ? Where is the great bell, at
the sound of which every citizen is bound to present
himself in arms in the market-place? He would
consider the lives and liberties of these
men worth not a day's purchase. The towns
had gained the liberties which the knights
and barons inherited by the sword. They could
only preserve them by the same weapon which the
knights and barons considered as the sole sufficient
guarantee for their continuance. The constitution of
the country in those days was composed of a certain
number of forces, not always in actual opposition to
each other, but always standing on the defensive.
Each of these forces claimed a right in movements
affecting the general good. The City, said Mr.
POLLING, had on some occasions exercised a
voice in the succession to the throne. It
had used direct political influence up to the time of
HENRY VII. The Lord Mayor, as a baron repre-
senting tho collective unity, London, was considered
of sufficient importance to fill such posts as the
barons holding the great crown fiefs were privi-
leged to claim. He had a right to the office of chief
butler to the Sovereign. Ile was a member of the
Great Council. Oa the decease of the Sovereign he
enjoyed, without any now grant from the Crown,
any dignity which ho might have previously pos-
sessed.

All the conditions which existed when the munici-
palities were formed are so changed that it would be
absurd to say that the regulations dictated by such
conditions should be now rigorously enforced. The
Lord Mayor has no longer the care of the mili-
tary defence of the City against Baron or King.
The Aldermen never have their slumbers troubled by
the sound of a "dreadful bell" ringing msdly
in the market-place. The great body of the
citizens are relieved from all those fears
which formerly caused them to combine, and
which have given rise to the existing customs of the
corporation. Let the municipality be remodelled
with reference to the new state of things. Preserve
the municipality itself. Do not touch the principle
of local self-government, but cut off all those tradi-
tional absurdities which have now as much meaning
as the ceremony in Westminster Hall, in which, un-
til lately, a quiet Englishman clothed himself in
armour, grasped a lance he could not wield, mounted
a horse furnished from the "ring" at Astley's, flung
down a glove that he knew uo one would pick
up, challenged any individual present to fight him,
although he was aware that the effect of any accept-
ance of the challenge would be to cause himself
and his opponent to be bound over to keep the
place; and finally, reeled backwards out of the Hall,
thankful that the solemnity of the occasion has pre-
served him from being overwhelmed with ridicule
for his participation in one of the moat bygone of
all farces. It was very right for the City to have the
conservancy of the river when fish of ordinary
stomachs did not disdain the Thames water, but
what do they want with the conservancy, now no

respectable fish would swim up its waters ? It was
very natural that in the infancy of trade, men who
exercised certain trades or " mysteries," as they were
called, should unite for the purpose of fellowship,
improvement, and protection, and claim within the
city which they enriched by their labour certain
. .

exclnsive prinCiples. It is absurd, when trade)
has assumed such gigantic proportions, to
apply to it the same rules which were
sufficient at its origin. You cannot grow oaks in
China jars. Tho City itself virtually acknowledges
the absurdity of the privileges claimed by the com-
panies, by never exercising them except in the case
of the brokers, publicans, and retailers. But this
virtual abandonment of the exclusive privileges does
not abolish the exclusive right, which is always at
hand to sena the* pnrionso of the mischievous and
the litigious. To what extent this reaches may
be imagined from -the fact stated by Mr. Poi,
LING, that there are 700 local metropolitan acts,
nearly 100 charters, and nearly as many customs
which could be called from their slumbers by any
adventurous attorney wishing to experimentalise
upon them. Here is a legal volcano, over which
quiet citizens are sleeping. It is time that all danger
from such a source should cease. It is time that the
City should give tip antiquated privileges which are
of no use, and which it seldom exercises. Let it
join in the work of reform, and take its due place in
an age of progress.

ACCIDENTS ON THE LONDON AND SOUTH
Westin:4 Reixweor.—On Saturday • fatal accident
occurred to William Wallace, a platelayer in the employ
of the London and South Western Company. Wallace was
engaged with other min at his vocation, between the
Waterloo-road and Vauxhall terminus, when the 9.4. i train
was approaching, from Windsor. The driver of the eaginc
blew his whistle and shut off the steam, and his mates
called to him, but it is believed he became confused. He
was knocked down and the train passed over him, cutting
his body in half, sad severing his legs from his body, which
was convoyed to the vault of St. John's Church to await an
inquest The second accident occurred at Wandsworth to
• passenger named Bumby, who lived in the High street.
The 11.20 down.train from Waterloo-road bad arrived at
Wandsworth, and, whilst it was still in motion, Mr. Bunihy
imprudently jumped out. He slipped between the carriage
and the platform, and the last carriage passed over his left
thigh, causing a compound fracture of the li.rh and fright.
fully lacerating it. Medical aid was promptly procured,
but the sufferer lies in a very precarious state.
A LADY LAwyea.—The Cleveland Plaindealer
says, that Mrs. Emma It. Coe has been pursuing • coarse
of legal studies, for the purpose of qualifying herself for the
practice of that profession.