TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING ADVERTISER,

SIR,-In estimating the value of any suggestions, it is always necessary, first, to consider whence they come. Not that it is necessary to examine the personal character of the givers; but it is necessary to know what opportunities they have had of acquiring sound opinions, and to observe the animus with which, and circumstances under which, the suggestions themselves are offered.

Many who have given their evidence before these Commissioners are unquestionably men of intelligence. But it does not follow, therefore, that their suggestions on this subject are valuable. A man may be a skilful chemist, and of great general intelligence, and yet be quite unable to offer a sound suggestion as to the treatment of a headache, or to give practical aid in re-setting a broken leg. It is the same with any human institution as it is with any part of the human frame. It has a natural history; and that natural history must be known,-either by actual experience or by careful study-before any useful suggestion can be made relating to it. On the present question, men who begin by telling us that they have not time to join the Corporation of London, clearly put themselves out of court at once. Those, again, who would have us believe that a Corporation is nothing if it is not a mere obligarchy, radiant with the glories of "Merchant Princes," (which is the only meaning of the position assumed by several witnesses, as well as by the organs of the Press that have attacked the Corporation) also put themselves out of court at once. Society is by no means made up of Merchant Princes," and certainly does not exist for their exclusive benefit. It were clearly better that the Corporation should be solely in the hands of even retailers-who constitute a large majority-than solely in the hands of the merchant princes. The true essential is, to give to every the full opportunity of taking care of its own in. terests, and having itself fully represented at all discussions. If this is done, no class has a right to complain. If any be not fully represented, if its interests are not fully considered, the blame rests entirely, not with those who are represented, and who do take a part, but with those who hold aloof. This is selfevident and it is the self-evidence of this that gives such a plain consciousness of want of truth and argument to the attackers of the Corporation. It is because the facts are thus against them that they have recourse to a low and coarse scurrility of language, which, if it were used by some obscure penny publication, would be quoted as a proof of the low condition

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of our education that any tastes can be gratified by such a style of vulgar pandering. Used as it is by publications of great pretensions, it demonstrates the consciousness of a bad cause, whose weakness is thus supplied by the free use of the rhetoric of Billingsgate.

Not one witness yet examined pretends even to have made himself competent to offer a suggestion, by previous careful study of the subject, or by examination and experience of the nature and working of municipal institutions. On the contrary, many of them came expressly to tell the commissioners that they are merchant princes, and are too busy in their own affairs to remember the words of the Great Teacher; of which, indeed, they may be politely reminded once a week, but which are forgotten before the Monday comes. They cannot "stoop" to "love their neighbour as themselves." How should they be able to express a sound opinion as to the mode in which duty to one's neighbour should be done? Their sole idea of human life being centred in swelling their moneybags, they are unable to comprehend, even, the action of minds that look on life with other eyes. Wrap it up how you may, disguise it as genteelly, and in as pompous language as you will, it is solely a question of selfishness and money-bags, against neighbourly goodwill and public duty.

No fact in the world is simple. All are made up of a number of elements. One man sees the same fact as one thing, another as another, according to the point of view each looks from. Thus even facts themselves will, without the least dishonest intention, be distorted and misrepresented. Of course, the deductions from such false premises will be false. Take, for instance, the case of the Lord Mayor's Show. The man whose soul is bounded by his money-bags is sorely troubled if, for an hour of one day in the year, the highways, which are left common that all men may use and enjoy them, are used in any other way than for gold-hungerers, like himself, to come and go, and breed gold thereby. He looks out of window; and, the streets being so crowded that the shorter ones naturally seek high places, he beholds small urchins on the lamp-post. Straightway he declareth upon oath that here is a public nuisance, and that the gazers on the show are but "rabble, idlers, and children." Another man, who has something of the milk of human kindness in him, goes forth. He sees an enormous gathering of men of most respectable appearance and orderly demeanour, numbering their many tens of thousands. He sees every window crowded with well-dressed women and glad children. He sees all faces happy and expectant. He says within himself that, whatever it be that draws these numbers together, it must necessarily be a good thing that can thus give such general pleasure, if there lurk behind the gratified curiosity nothing of immoral tendency. When he learns that they are waiting to see the passage of an ancient pageant, which symbolises the honours given by free men to those among them who have, by honest self-exertion, raised themselves to a

position that enables them, and finds them willing, to give time and care to public interests; and when he learns, as he will learn if he seeks truth,-that the very sight of this pageant has been the needed spur, the turning point in the career of many a youth, afterwards distinguished,-filling him with emotions that have influenced his whole career; he will rejoice that, in this utilitarian age, such a pageant yet remains in use. He will feel that its maintenance is a healthy and a valuably useful thing; and one that must be looked at, to be rightly judged of, not from a hard utilitarian or mercenary point of view, but with reference to the common impulses, even the weaknesses, of human nature. I allude to this now, merely by way of illustration. I shall have more to say, by and by, on what it is the fashion, among the worshippers of moneybags, to call the "tom-foolery" of the Corporation. I am not ashamed, meantime, to confess myself a believer in that philosophy which declares those who would be always wise and solemn, and decorous and utilitarian, to be the really greatest and most barren fools that the world holds-to say nothing of hypocrisy.

There is another class of witnesses, who avow themselves to be either mere stop-gaps in office, with an actual hostility to it, or to have been put in the position they hold to serve some special purpose. It is self-evident that no suggestion given by any of these can be either impartial or the fruit of comprehensive ideas.

A compounded example of several of these characteristics is found in the case of one witness. It cannot be doubted that he gave all his evidence with the most perfect honesty. Emphatic as he was, no one can doubt that he has all his life been labouring, with singleness of purpose and consistency of aim, to the same ends, and advocating the same changes now so confidently propounded. Yet I find singular proofs in his evidence of the way in which an honest mind and clear head can see facts differently from other people.

This witness began by stating that he was "an electoral agent, undertaking to promote the views of the party who retains him." He goes on to say, that, "at the commencement of the present year he received a summons from the Chamberlain of the City of London," requiring him to take up his freedom.

Now, the fact is notorious, and is even stated in another part of the evidence of the same witness, that it is only retail traders that the requirements of "taking up freedom" is even pretended to affect. Is our friend, then, a "retail dealer" (on behalf, of course, of "the party who retains him") in the sort of wares he has so liberally displayed before these commissioners? or is the whole story of his having been served with this summons, the mere effort of a lively imagination?

It is on this alleged summons, however, that the whole fabric of the " 'City of London Municipal Reform Association" is stated by himself to have been built; of which Association this witness is secretary, and as such offers, from an avowedly hostile point of view, his own suggestions.

It is quite possible, however, to regard the Corporation with eyes that look rather to substance than to names or shadows. It is quite possible to appreciate and reverence the true character and value of the institution, and yet to see and feel that there are incidental points that need remedy, in order that the reality shall, in very truth, come up practically to the idea of the institution. It is quite possible to be willing to discuss suggestions without dogmatism, and to consider defects without bitterness. It is possible to feel that, though human nature remains the same, and the laws of logic, too, the same, in the course of human events adaptations must be made to meet changed conditions; and that, therefore, the true friend of any institution is he who, while resolutely standing up against all ignorant abuse and revolutionary attacks, would, in all humility, searchingly grapple with every actual defect, discuss its causes, and firmly, after due consideration, insist upon applying the remedy. Such an one will, however, require to see an alleged mischief proved, before he admits any mere declamatory complaints. He will feel that the fact of any of the vital parts of an institution having flourished through many generations, is, in itself, a proof that they have a genuine utility. He will also feel that every one who loves progress and peace, better than continual change and uncertainty (the great hindrances of progress), will desire to see men respect what has been long proved practically good, even though theoretical perfectibility, looking only at half the elements of the case, may fancy that it can contrive something vastly better. He will feel that whoever really and sincerely desires the removal of any mischiefs, and the bettering of any evils (and not mere self-aggrandisement, or the attainment of some selfish end, under cover of the pretence of these), will seek the accomplishment of those ends by legitimate and regular means, and not by illegitimate and irregular ones;-the application of which latter, even to accomplish an honestly sought good end, does but prove a want of sincerity and earnestness, and can be but an example, a precedent, and a justification, for any pretender to have recourse to like means for the most sinister and dangerous purposes. Above all, and through all, he will feel that true and healthy and lasting remedies must come from within, not be imposed from without; that they can only be thus true and healthy and lasting when those concerned have roused themselves to the recognition of them, have themselves devised the means of effecting them, and have carried them out with the self-consciousness of a right work rightly done. For he will feel, too, that only they can have the impulse necessary to the thoroughly well doing of any work, who have the consciousness that a prospective as well as immediate responsibility rests upon them; and that none are so inefficient or so negligent as those who, under what pretences soever the interference be disguised, are taught to lean on others to supply thought or lighten responsibility.

CITY CORPORATION INQUIRY.-No. VI.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING ADVERTISER.

SIR,-Allow me, before proceeding to the first head of "suggestions" offered, to turn aside with a brief episode. We have hitherto looked only on an unlawful Commission, engaged in the effort to get up a case against the Corporation of London, by unlawful means. Let us glance, for a moment, in another direction.

Homer tells us that, when the son of Juno dealt nectar round, the Olympians were thrown into inextinguishable laughter, as they watched the limping God stumbling now on this side, now on that. The like disposition must seize any man who observes the shifting grounds taken, one after the other, by those who are consistent only in their hostility to the Corporation of London, and in their regardlessness of truth in the pursuit of that hostility.

The other day we were told, with vast parade of virtuous and self-sanctified indignation, that the Corporation was to be held up to the scorn of every living man, because she had taken means that her proceedings should be public and recorded, and not kept secret and unknown. Strange this may seem. But it is consistent with that policy which seeks every opportunity to undermine the action of Municipal Institutions. Free and open discussion is abhorrent to that policy. It must be crushed, kept down, prohibited. All must be done undiscussed, to rule and order, as dictated by irresponsible functionaries. It was natural, then, that the enemies of the Corporation should seek to raise a storm of indignation at any steps taken to set before the public a true record of its proceedings.

But lo! a change comes o'er the spirit of the dream. The charge is now raised, that the Corporation maintains that very silence and secrecy, the efforts to avoid which were the latest ground of charge. We have been treated to a new discourse touching Charters, Acts of Parliament, and divers other matters; throughout which the secrecy maintained is rung many times upon the changes.

Though the attackers of the Corporation of London have a natural and well-known antagonism to truth in any shape, it behoves others to expose the character of some of the more barefaced of the impositions attempted on the public, instead of leaving these to neutralise each other by that inherent inconsistency which will be enough for many. "Infinite pains," Sir Oracle declares," appear tones" have been taken to conceal the documents. Their policy is to conceal their charters." Probably the most important are not even in print." "Why have the charters been concealed, and studiously kept from

the knowlege of the public ?" And again, in immediate connection with this charge of concealment : We find ourselves in a condition to point out at least one notable example of a neglected duty-of an obligation imposed upon the London Corporation by Act of Parliament, which has been altogether neglected; and that, for the obvious purpose of gain. We should, perhaps, rather say that the Corporation of London have set an Act of Parliament at defiance, in order that they might make their profit of the violation." And it is then alleged that by an Act passed in the days of Charles II., it was directed that the Thames should be embanked from London-bridge to the Temple, and that no houses should be built there." In defiance of this, we are told," houses and warehouses, and streets have been built, under the name of 'Thames-street,' &c.; and a considerable portion of the revenues of the Corporation is derived from that very property, in direct violation, not to say in direct defiance, of an Act of Parliament." There is much more to the same effect. "Breaches of trust and "forfeiture " are liberally charged. The two main charges are, however, concealment of the charter and having built Thamesstreet, in defiance of an Act of Parliament expressly prohibiting it. It is fair to say that both charges are avowed to be made upon the authority, as quoted, of the statement of one witness before the unlawful Cemmission now sitting.

Everyone will be struck with the peculiar indecency of thus bringing forward any charge of illegal procedure, or of violation of an Act of Parliament, at a time when there is a Commission sitting whose very appointment is an illegal act ;-which is, in itself, a violation of the common law of the land, and a direct defiance of the express law as regards London; and which, in its method of procedure, sets equally at defiance the rules of all fair and honest inquiry, and the methods of procedure recognised by every lawful tribunal. Passing this over, however, let us come to the facts touching the special charges made.

In my third letter I alluded to certain statements made as to the charters. I showed that the great stress laid on these is a mistake, by reason of the actual constitutional character and legal force of charters. I also showed that the statements themselves were incorrect. It had then been distinctly declared, without reservation or qualification, that, to the "certain knowledge" of the witness, these charters are not accessible to the public." I affirmed that this is not so. And, in proof that the publication of these letters has already not been without its fruits, the same witness was questioned again on the matter after the letter I refer to had been published. On this second occasion he varied his "certain knowledge." It is now admitted that there are some fifty charters in print. But, by an ingenious confounding

of one sort of charters with another (most of the City companies, which this Commission does not yet profess to touch, having charters of their own), it is still able to be said that there are several charters not published. Observe, that the original statement was, that the charters relating to the city of London, using that term as equivalent to the Corporation of London, are not accessible to the public. I am not going to admit any quibble of words. The companies' charters have nothing to do with the Corporation. I affirm, again, that the charters of the Corporation are accessible to the public. I have, at this moment, before me, four separate and distinct publications, each containing all the principal and important charters of the city of London. One of these publications is dated 1682; another is without date, but certainly not far from the same time; the third, 1723 (and is the third edition of the work!); the fourth, 1793. I have also the same charters in other forms; and they are published in yet others. Some of these publications are more complete than others; but the differences are very immaterial. All the main charters are in each. The editor of one of the older editions says:- " Some perhaps may suspect the truth of it; but, if any such there be, they may be well satisfied, if they take but any part of the same (for a little charge, and no great pains) at the Chappel of the Rolls." And there, on the Rolls, let any one who likes, cause search to be now had, and true copies to be made of any charters alleged to be not published. If the Records there are less "accessible "now than they were 150 years ago, this is not, at any rate, the fault of the Corporation of London.

I have already directed attention to the obvious confusion of ideas that exists as to charters, and their force with what depends, not on these, bnt on Statutory declarations found on the Rolls of Parliament, and on Bye-laws of the Corporation itself. Of course, no procedure can ever be taken, under any of these, without the production and proof of them, in sustainment of the claim.

It may be safely said that there are few subjects on which more, and more accessible, means of information exist, than the charters and customs of the Corporation of London. I have already stated what it is that must be more laboriously sought; but this, no witness yet examined has (according to the published evidence) sought; and the Commissioners evidently desire carefully to avoid the subject. I allude to the inherent powers of self-renovation existing within the Corporation of London. That is the point of the whole question. But empirical treatment suits revolutionists better than a legitimate one.

Next, let us examine the charge of breach of trust, and defiance of an Act of Parliament. I beseech the reader to observe carefully what the specific charges made are. They are, the not doing a work the Cor

poration was held in obligation by an Act of Parliament to do and the building of Thames-street in defiance of that act.

In the charge made the act alluded to is not mentioned. As, however, it is as "accessible" as the charters, I will inform the reader that it is one of the acts passed after the Fire of London. It had nothing in the world to do with the River Thames, but solely with "the rebuilding the City of London." It is the Act of 18 and 19 Charles II., cap. 8 (sometimes called 19 Charles II., cap. 3). What does this act say? The reader will be rather astonished to learn that, instead of imposing the alleged obligation, and proving breaches of trust, and the getting rents out of Thames-street"in defiance" of this act, Thamesstreet is expressly named in it as then existing, and the Corporation is expressly directed to open several other streets down to the Thames.

Section 32 requires " that, for the preventing inundations and for easiness of ascent, the street called Thames-street, and all the ground between the said street and the river of Thames, shall be raised and made higher, by three foot at the least, above the surface of the ground as now it lieth." The next section declares, "that no house, &c., (cranes and sheds for present use excepted), shall be built within the distance of 40 foot of such part of any wall, key, or wharf as bounds the river of Thames, from Tower-wharf to Londonbridge, and from London-bridge to Temple-stairs, ner any house, &c. (cranes only excepted), within seventy foot of the middle of Bridewell-dock, Fleet-ditch, and Turnmill-brook, from the river of Thames to Clerkenwell, before the four-and-twentieth day of March, which shall be in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred sixty-eight" (1668).

Peradventure our limping Vulcan has passed a couple of centuries with the seven sleepers. It is very clear that he is not aware that the year 1668, the time allotted apparently for the new raised ground to become firm and settled before being built on, has long since passed to the tomb of all the Capulets. Yet he sometimes ventures to talk of the Corporation of London being out of date!

But there is another Act,of 22nd Charles II., cap. relating to the same matter. It is therein declared, not that the Corporation of London had committed any breach of trust, or set at defiance any Act of Parliament, but precisely the reserve.

It is particularly declared that the Corporation have done several of the works named in the former act in an approved manner, but that the appointed funds have proved far insufficient. It is added that the Common Council have themselves suggested other works, Improvements in " Thames-street, from London Po to Puddle Dock," are again expressly named.

The act goes on to confirm what has been done by the Corporation, in making streets and passages down to the River Thames. In a later section it proceeds to make enactments, not affecting the Corporation, but the owners of property along-side of the Thames. These enactments appear clearly to have been actually made, in consequence of suggestions of the Corporation. In the former act, the Corporation were empowered to buy of the owners, in order to make the new streets to the Thames; which alone proves that they were not themselves the owners there. The sections of the present act further prove the same thing. The Corporation is not empowered to buy. But it is ordered that there shall be left an open tract of ground of the breadth of 40 feet, to be converted into a key, or public and open wharf, on the North side of the Thames, from London-bridge to the Temple. Each proprietor's ground therein is to be distinguished by denter stones. The duty of the Corporation is confined to setting these stones down. Each proprietor is expressly empowered to demand and receive rates for the lading or unlading of goods and merchandise at his part of this key or wharf. Cranes, stairs, and docks are excepted, and left still permissible. Provision is pressly made for what sort of houses are to be built by any proprietor; that is, on the land lying between Thames-street and the Thames, which land has been already seen to have been existing, and recognised as right, and to be made more available, under the former act.

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How far does all this bear out the charge of breaches of trust and violated Acts of Parliament ? How far does it sustain the allegation, that an "act in the time of Charles II. directed that the River Thames should be embanked from London-bridge to Templebar, and that no houses should be built there :Hundreds of houses, however, have been built, as we all know, along Thames-street." The act says not a word about embankment of the Thames, or about no houses to be built in Thames-street. On the contrary, it expressly recognizes Thames-street as then existing, and as to be made more accessible for trade; makes provision for other new streets down to the Thames ; and also actually makes provision for houses to be built between Thames-street and the Thames, and recognises the proprietorship of individuals in the Thames-bank. That the proprietors of ground there have not kept the wharf open all along (if the permission for 66 cranes, stairs, and docks," let this be ever possible) is much to be regretted. The funds may have failed after all, until it was too late. How much, moreover, of the blame rests with the Crown itself, through the putting in action of powers carefully reserved to it for that purpose, in the very act abovenamed, I will not now too nicely inquire. It would involve a great deal more discussion of the vexed

question of the Conservancy of the Thames than your space will permit.

As for the "trunk sewerage that the modern Vulcan alludes to;-if the embankment would have sufficed, Thames-street will now suffice.

Such is an example of the way in which the case against the Corporation of London is being got up, and the public abused as to facts. No fair tribunal would have let any man make vague reference to an act, without requiring its exact citation. No honest writer would have used such " evidence." But

it is enough for the eager enemies of the Corporation. The loose insinuation is greedily seized on. Out of it is straightway manufactured, and ostentatiously exhibited, without inquiry or reference, a most heinous indictment. It is directly inconsistent, it is true, with a former one; but it is not the less available, if it will serve to deal a blow at the Corporation. That it implicates, far more, the first men in London for the last two centuries, than it can possibly be made to do the existing members or governing body of the Corporation, is no matter. To mislead the public is the only object; and the public will not think of this.

Allow me, Sir, to vary this scene. Let me, as a contrast to the system of unlawful and dishonest attack now so sedulously making on the Corporation of London, and, through it, on the Municipal Institutions of England-to invite the attention of the citizens of London to the firm and manly tone in which their predecessors have shown their consciousness of the duty that rests with them, to stand up in maintenance of what is of far higher importance than even the embankment of the Thames, namely, their liberties and independence.

An address had been presented to George III., setting forth certain grievances, and claiming constitutional redress. The King was advised to pass, in his reply, a heavy censure on the City, instead of heeding the grievances complained of. But the Corporation of London knew its duties, and did not shrink from fulfilling them. Instead of sinking silently, dismayed and powerless, it forthwith prepared another address; on the occasion of the presentation of which it was, that Mr. Beckford said to the King those memorable words, now engraven in Guildhall, in which he declared that "whoever has already dared, or shall hereafter endeavour, by false insinuations and suggestions, to alienate your Majesty's affections from your loyal subjects in general, and from the city of London in particular, is an enemy to your Majesty's person and family, a violator of the public peace, and a betrayer of our happy con