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    the expense for administering 400 , 000 Z . in the City of London considerably exceeds 100 , 000 / . We are quite ready to admit that there is a distinction between Manchester Corporation and that of London . If it were properly suited to the actual state of the metropolis at the jxresent day , London Corporation- avouM be , more important than that of Manchester in something far beyond the ratio of comparison between the populationsmore than ten times as important as Manchester . Moreover , the London Corporation inherits

    traditions and the memory of services performed to the State , which really confer upon it a degree of respectability not to be acquired within a few generations . But when we look into the details of the finance , we find that much of the money expended is laid out , not only for the purpose of small utility , but for purposes which do not in any degree conduce to the dignity of the Corporation . For example , the Town Clerk receives 1892 Z . ; the Secondary , who is a species of Town Clerk , 124 , 91 . ; and the [ Remembrancer , V 76 ol .

    The last officer has very few duties to perform ; the principal appears to be , to sit under the gallery of the House of Commons , and to take note of any enactments which may invade the privileges of the Cityj and against these he makes a protest , generally with the effect of causing the City to be exempted from general enactments . By these means he has secured the Cit y against infraction of sucli privileges as those which enabled the Corporation to dispose of property belonging to freemen who die intestate , to preserve intact their right of meeting pleas

    of the Crown by ordeal of fire or water , or by wager of battle , with other privileges equally important . This duty of the Remembrancer could be disposed of , once for aU , by a rule in Parliament which should exclude the City from all general enactments not expressly made to include it ; and any other duties of record could be performed by the Town Clerk or his subordinates .

    Mr . Bennoch proposes to throw the three offices of Town Clerk , Secondary , and ^ Remembrancer into one , with a salary of 1250 ? . ; allowing the holder three clerks at ~ 300 Z . each , —a total cost of 2150 ? ., instead of 4906 ? . This is a specimen of the manner in which a judicious economy might reduce the expenditure of the City , without reducing the efficiency or the dignity of any office in the Corporation .

    The finance is bad , we have said , for vicious levying . Of this the coal tax is an example . It amounts to one shilling and one penny per ton . There is no great objection to the manner in which this tax is divided—one penny to collection , and fourpence to improvements of the City ; eightpence being returned to the general Government for improvements outside the City . By this tax Now Oxford-street has been constructed , Trafalgar-square has been improved , Victoria-street lias been made , and other improvements are destined in Southwurk and elsewhere . But if a

    rate is desirable for improvements , bow excessively inconvenient and unjust to impose a rate , not upon the household of tlio ratepayers , who would benefit by the improvement , but upon the coal-cellar ; thus especially pressing upon a vital necessity of the poor ! The expenditure is bad , partly for those payments to the occupants of odices winch are useless , and do not conduco to the dignity of the City , because the services Arlueh

    they perform migl it be quite an effectually performed by persons who receive payment on « thor grounds . The . liemembrancor , for example , might be dispcnHo-d with , and the same watch J'pon ' tho general income might bo lcivpt by the lown Cleric , who could do it Avithout difficulty . Jno pageantry of tho Lord JVTnyor ' s show , not altogeth er so objectionable in itself iih Mr . Benn /> oh and somo others regard it , may also be con-BKwvred to cost an exorbitant suni .

    Hut avo have never regarded tho mere gross exjx'ndituro an any teal ; of abu . so . Wo believe , in ' ¦ 'w iirst place , that , tho service which would be ro-J' ! {! i {! 1 ' m tfrotit a city as tlio l { filinh ine' ¦ ''opolits in a commodity of hudi ]) rico , and can only bo purchased by a payment reckoned at Jinndr ( , ( iH and thousands . Bub beyond thai , we IO that thore in u pay men ! , which the market noc'H not , indicate . You niigbt perhaps get a P ^ n ieular service performed at u certain price . v » , ' iV i ' . l ) rocui'o a lawyer for a . specific service at a « r ( "l-lui ( iwn vnto ; you mil got an article fora mnvsl '' ljwac ( H ) rdingto " a tariffwhich in well understood ; . ' « . you buy n hnt m t | , 0 H | U ) . > for mtes wliitdi can 0 ascertained , beforehand . When , however , you

    seek to Lave a service performed , not only up to the standard of a class , but up to a standard quite peculiar and sui generis , with somethingthrown in of a spirit , freedom , and dignity beyond what a mere money payment could give , then you must place the man from ^ whom you expect such service above the ordinary level of paid servants . If a great journal requires a style of writing above that of other journals , it can secure it in the first place by getting the pick of men who write , and paying them the highest salary , and then adding to the salary a something

    of generous surplusage which shall discharge the writer from sense of mere salaried performance and endow him with a spontaneity of superabundance . So if you want a man to exeute the office of Mayor , you might procure an intelligent , a competent , and assiduous person , who could execute the work say for five hundred a year ; but if you require a man to feel that he does not belong to mere paid officers , that he represents the hereditary Lordship which embodies the old traditions , and the present power of London city , you must place him amongst the category , for

    the year at least , of magnates whose income is reckoned by thousands . A great city can always afford to be open-handed ; and unless it is openhanded , it will find its public services executed in a mean , carking spirit , altogether unworthy of a great city . A better economy of the state finance might , as Mr . BennOch calculates , save forty or fifty thousand a year—equal to a capital of one million and a quarter for improvements . But to pur experience , a far greater thing than the mere saving of pounds is the securing of something better for the money .

    This Mr . Bennoch ' s plan appears to us to do . "What he proposes in brief is this . He would erect the present City and the Parliamentary-Boroughs into nine Municipalities , namely , the City Proper , the Tower Hamlets , Finsbury , Marylebone , Westminster , Kensington , Lambeth , -Southwark , and Greenwich-and-Deptford ; each Municipality to have twelve Aldermen , and seventy-two Councillors . He would also erect a Central Council , to consist of thirty-six Aldermen and one hundred and eight Councillors , elected

    by the Corporations ; each Corporation in turn to appoint a Lord Mayor for the year , who shall preside over the Central Council . The Central Council would sit in the City of London , from which Corporation would be purchased , by the united Municipalities , the Guildhall , Mansionhouse , and every public building necessary for the new Corporation . TheCentralCouncil would have the management of lighting , police , Avater , sewers , river , bridges , improvements , streets , iinances , rates , and rents , education , and charities . The

    execution of the behests of the Central Council to devolve upon the local Municipalities . Thus , for example , improvements and streets would be annuallyfaid out under the sanction of the General Council ; but the execution of the streets would deA olve upon the Municipality of the place . Some of the larger privileges now enjoyed by tho City would devolve upon this Central Counciltho Lord Mayor to bo an ex-ofhVio Privy Councillor ; the Central Council to retain the right of approaching the throne Avith addresses , or prosen ting petitions to Parliament through the

    bherins ; of being represented in Parliament by an official , and of continuing other privileges secured to the Corporation by charter , for services rendered to the Crown in days gone by . It appears to us thai ; this plan has tho two-fold jul-VJintage of continuing the traditional dignity which still bangs round the City , appreciated as it may have been more forcibly in tunes gone by , and as it may bo in times to come ; at tho same time that tho plan secures for the administration of local affairs a machinery commensurate to the grandeur , wealth , and importance of the metropolis .

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    Til 10 K () Y A T , (! H A N ( J . KT / L ( Hi AT C AM 1 Mi I T )( { E . Tine Commissioners who inquired into the " state , discipline , studies , and revenues" of the Univer wity of Cambridge furnish her Majesty with sonic information on the duties of the Chancellor . The extract is 'very short , and we shall give it ut length : —" The highest academical odieo in tlmt of Chancellor . JA > r many years past it has been successively filhnl by individuals of exalted nude and honourable name , in the selection of whom tho University 1 ms sough !; to render a graceful , homage to eminence in public and private virtue .

    It is only on rare occasions of extraordinary interest that the Chancellor is present in the University . " The Chancellorship is the highest compliment which tlie University authorities ¦ have it . in . their power to pay , and Cambridge , in search , of a Chancellor , discovered that Prince Albert united in his person that amount of public and private virtue to which she ever seeks , on such . -occasions , " to render her graceful homage . " Really , Ave do not know that she could have made a better choice . Every one is pretty well acquainted with the internal condition of an English University . It is an institution posof

    sessed enormous wealth—it , holds some fixed opinions , which it is bound to inculcate on all who come within the range of its influence—it manufactures believers in Thirty-Nine Articlesit is the most conservative phenomenon that these days can produce—and is the refuge of all the antiquated notions which the Avorld lias long rejected . Under such circumstances , it was no , easy thing for the University of Cambridge to select Prince Albert for her Chancellor . In spite of all his disadvantages , the man has made himself a name in England . He , breathing the atmosphere of-courts , has identified himself to no small extent with the cause of education . He

    has no sympathy with the ancient systems to which Oxford clings with the stern tenacity of despair . Cambridge has always -been more ready . to keep pace with the deA elopment of knoAvledge . She really does atttempt to send her students into the world , not sunk in blackest ignorance of the wants of modern days , and the meaning of this struggling epoch . Oxford , before the Great Duke was laid in his grave , ran , richly clothed in silk and purple , to lay its highest honour at the feet of a Protectionist Premier , with no undisguised aspirations after the honours which that Premier could bestow . Cambridge , if she meant Avhat the world AVould have her

    mean , proclaimed by her election of a Ueforming Chancellor , that she was determined to move onwards . So much for encouragement . "We should like , hoAvever , to see some stronger signs of improvement . The little that has been accomplished already should be the earnest of greater things to folloAA r . But it is true that in these dayswhen . Maurices are denounced as heretics , and the whole intellectual and religious aspect of the Church is one of darkest confusion—Avhen the prophets call each other false , and there is no light , but only faint glimpses of truth , clouded by conventional forms and Athanasian dogmas—is it true that Cambridge still refuses her honours and her wealth to those Avhom she

    brands as Dissenters V Hoav Prince Albert must have scorned the thought that the men avIio made him Chancellor would have denied him the honour if he had not avowed his belief in surplices ! The Duke of Brabant , too ! The thought may surely have crossed bis mind that the doctrines must be hard to l > e understood , which can only be taught in the pomp of wealth and luxury , and by the imposing 'force of medieval , establishments ! "When will the day arrive that professors , follows , and scholars shall unite to throw oil" the great chain which was forged in days of blighting superstition , and open out their halls , their honours , and their wealth , to all who Avill show their Avortb , oven if tliey do not conform to the texts of the dogmatic Compromise .

    Perl laps this is too iniicb to expect . JJu ! surely there is nothing to prevent an alteration in the system of education . Nothing to prevent the teachers of ( hat- great liniversity from learning and promulgating ( he truths Avhieh . tin ' s century has brought to light . Lord John Russell , ¦ p ledged his faith , in spirit if not in words , ( hat , the Universities should . be reformed . "Whore is the fulfilment F It is to be found in two . HI no Hooks , which Home curious antiquarian may one day discover in Mouse of Parliament libraries , Avhen 1 . 11 e ( InivcTsitie . s , too latei in yielding , have fallen victims to that bugbear of ecclesiastics—¦ the ( Spirit , of the Times .

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    TIII'l ( JltKAT < J < mAT CASK . TirionK is an ancient canon to tbeeflbct that , hen one branch of the Catholic Church , has been , established in u particular district no other branch of the Name (' a . tliolic Church . shall oneroaeh upon its jurisdiction . Hence , according |() jli < rj ) Churchmen , tho fatal error of the Bishop of . Rome , when he created archbishops and bishops in thin country , aHHigning thorn territorial titles ,

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    November 26 , 1853 ] THE LEADER . 1141

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 26, 1853, page 1141, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2014/page/13/