The Sun.
London, England, 1853-03-24 00:00:00

CITY IMP.ROVEMENTS.'

Business
this day

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But, while this foray is still in preparation, and
the parties threatened are thinldng of revolvers
and life-preservers, it occurs to some of the wiser
heads of the city that though the part of Robin
Hood may draw very well at the minor theatres
and over the water, it is rather too good a joke for
Guildhall. Indeed, those redoubtable heroes Gog
and Magog themselves would recoil from the at-
tempt to plunder 3,000 able-bodied men of their
money in the face of day, not to speak of the nuis-
ance of the " value received"—viz., the abominable
freedom. These persons, therefore, are bethinking
themselves of strengthening and reforming the cor-
poration by more legitimate methods. There are,
indeed, measures of this tendency always about,
and hardly a session passes without somebody going
about with a bill for tinkering up the incurable
corporation. Sir Benjamin Hall, we believe, has
one this session. .But a movement on quite a
grand scale, and eventually rather unanimous, was
made in the city on Tuesday. A Court of Common
Council was held, the Lord Mayor in the chair,
and three propositions discussed with all the spirit
men borrow from despair. The first proposition
was a bill to extend the franchise for the ward-
mote elections to all persons rated at 101.
a-year ; the second, a bill . "to effect suitable
alterations in the corporation ;" the third, a
committee of the whole court to consider what
reforms are required in the Courts of Alder-,
men and Common Council. It will be observed
that these three propositions are successively wider
in their range, and there was no little diversity of
opinion as to the comparative prudence of begin-
ning with the very small instalment of enlarging
the wardmote franchise, and of reforming the whole
C9rporation—wards, Aldermen, Common Council,
and everything. Some were for a little at a time ;
others for everything at once—that is, to have one
trouble and have done with it. But the question
gradually developed in the civic mind, much as a
similar question is apt to bud, to blossom, and to
bloom in the genial bosom of a country gentleman
whose family mansion falls short of his wants or
his ideas. Beginning, perhaps, with the concep-
tion of a new study, or a larger drawing-room, he
successively discovers the necessity of a new dining-
room, hall, conservatory, chambers, offices, and so
on, till he satisfies himself the whole house must
be rebuilt, and that, as he afterwards sees, on an
entirely new site. The more thoughtful members
of the Corporation of London have evidently ar-
rived at the last stage of this development, so far
as regards their private convictions. They know
that the whole must be reformed, if not merged in
a still larger reform. The only question about
which they differ is, whether it is expedient to ask
for a purely preliminary measure, the extension of
the word franchise for instance, or go for the whole
at once. The Court on Tuesday eventually decided
on a resolution comprising both the first and the
second resolutions. A committee is therefore to
be appointed forthwith to prepare a bill for the ex-
tension of the wardmote franchise, the bill to in-
clude such other reforms as may be thought suit-
able for the Corporation. With this result the
Court appeared to be quite satisfied, and parted
good friends.

In all the above propositions one proviso is very
properly made, and that is, that the support of
Government should, if possible, be obtained. In
our lnimble opinion, however, nothing is more
likely than that Government should hesitate to as-
sist by its support in cobbling up a wretched affair
which, as well for what it does as for what it pre-
vents, we do not hesitate to call the great scandal
and nuisance of the British metropolis. That me-
tropolis is naturally one. For all the purposes of
a city it demands one management. Its drainage
falls into one river ; its thoroughfares concern all
who traverse them. The more its water and its

as are severally under a general system the better.
Its thieves and other disorderlies run to and fro
without regard to boundaries, and only dodge sepa-
rate jurisdiction. Its poor, though they may work
in one parish, live in another, and demand relief
from a third,. are the poor of the whole metropolis.
.Its port, its markets, its public buildings, its parks,
its places of amusement, its river, its bridges, its
til. icteeh-lceeoau r t sst plain
railways,. belong to the whole metropolis. Its
regulationspo-
lice-courtsnfindependence,
p Governmentendbelcoen, ganat thathe
courage,
r awphoose,lsee.sasnledts
ability,adnudt
that feels the least confidence in itself, to •
one municipality. for the whole of London, withgivet us
he
usual division into wards, and a suitable' arrange_
went . of the magistracy. Ours is the onlymetropo-
lisrrange-
in the world that has not municipal - institutions,
and to this reason may be traced, mother, the fact that London dissatisfies
, ore than to any
and disappoints foreigners. The
that exist with jurisdictionamon only authorities
ment—which has too much to dogus are our Govern-
affairs, and which always shirks to attend to local
when it can—and our wretched metropolitan business
generally simple nests of jobbers parish vestries,
themselves about parish
. , for few trouble
intention of robbing the affa.irs, unless with
.an
parish. In fact, parish
business in the metropolis is usually abandoned to
the tender mercies of attorneys, contractors, and
their respective touters. . We want
.a municipality
of so large, ced a sort
that noblemen, omprehensive, and dignifi
, , gentlemen, merchants, bankers,
and the •
ingnest ranks of professional. life may be
glad to hold office in it, instea now ating the very
name of a corporation as theydo. And why
have we not such a body, ' Simply because there
already exists a thing called a corporation, misgo
vernirt-K.,
oppressing, and corrupting just one-twen-
tieth of the people in this metropolis—exactly 5 per
cent. of the population of London. Because there
is a city about a mile and a half long and. half that
in width in the heart of this metropolis. , therefore
London is not to be a city at all, and is to lose all
the undeniable advantages of a united municipal
administration. At this moment we are giving to
a private company the arterial drainage of the
metropolis/ because there is no municipal body
competent to grasp such an undertaking. At this
moment several projects for parks and other
improvements are in abeyance till the opportunity
will be irrecoverably past, simply because they
seem nobody's concern. If Government is to give
its aid to any Corporation, we trust it will not be
an illusory attempt to quicken and freshen up the
stale old affair in the " city," but the long-desired
grant of municipal institutions for the whole metro-
polis of London.

EXTRAORDINARY BIRTH.—OR Wednesday last, the
16th inst., Mrs. Sarah Beckett, the wife of Mr. John
Beckett, tin-plate-worker, 11, Stacey-street, Stepney,
was safely delivered of three sons, who, with their
mother, are doing well.

( From the Times.)
That part of the metropolis which is called the
city of London, and which has about as much right
to be considered London as Little Britain has to
be the British empire, is just now in that mixture
of flurry, bustle, worry, and fidget, which old
ladies commonly feel when put a little out of their
way, particularly if that way is a bad one. There
are rather serious indications of a storm overhead,
a pressure from without, and an unsteadiness in
the ground underneath. So, among their frenzied
efforts to repair their position, such as the intro-
duction of Batty's troupe into the Lord Mayor's
show, the good people of the City have been trying
to reform their representative system, specially ex-
cepted, at their request, from the operation of the
Municipal
Reform Act. The freedom of the city
has been for some time rather at a discount,—why, •
we do not exactly know, but probably the fact that
it is thought disgraceful to belong to the City of
London has something to do with it. Formerly
they pounced on any man that opened a shop, and,
flourishing an old parchment, made him pay 251.
for taking out his freedom, which was much the
same thing as making a ship-passenger drink a
gallon of sea-water on crossing the Line, and pay
for it at the rate of a guinea a-quart. However, some
years ago people began to suspect that a posse of
drunken beadles invading a man's premises, and
insisting on his taking out his freedom, could not be
really such an irresistible power in this civilised age.
They accordingly turned out the intruders, and set
them and their masters at defiance. So many did
this that the authorities began to perceive that it
would be a moral impossibility to make a thousand
people pay 251. a-piece for what they did not want
at any price. They lowered the figure therefore to
51., and sent their myrmidons again round the city
levying black mail on peaceable shopkeepers. But
here, again, the fact that all respectable people
would rather pay 51. to get rid of the thing than to
have it told with fatal effect, and the freedom of
the city proved as unsaleable at 5/. as at 25/. It
was in vain the city pressgang went about the
streets ; every man who valued his character or
his peace, and wished to keep out of city elections
and city squabbles, shut his door in their faces, and
would not be " free." That is the present state of
things, and the Corporation have actually ordered
summonses to issue against- some 3,000 respectable
persons for trading without being " free." At this
moment that number of men, who have hitherto
fancied themselves in a land of? liberty, and under
the 'shadow of our glorious constitution, walk the
streets in fear, lest they should be suddenly seized,
subjected to some disagreeable process, and robbed
of 51. into the bargain. Such, we are credibly in-
formed, is the extent of the threatened municipal
razzia, but we have it on the authority of one of
the speakers at the Court of Common Council on
Tuesday that 1,240 summonses had been issued
from the Chamberlain's offices • that 156 timid
persons had paid the fine ; that 293 had begged to
be excused; 299 had pleaded that they were whole-
sale traders ; and 492 had adopted the more sen-
sible and more dignified course of taking no notice
of the summons.