fic, shop hours, weights and measures, fertilizing and
feeding stuffs, wild birds' protection, land transfer, locomotives on
highways and the acquisition of small dwellings. Sufficient has been
said to indicate that the legislature from time to time recognizes the
important position of the county council as an administrative body,
and is continually extending its functions.

The municipal borough and the borough council.

_The Urban District._--A municipal borough is a place which has been
incorporated by royal charter. In the year 1835 the Municipal
Corporations Act was passed, which made provision for the constitution
and government of certain boroughs which were enumerated in a schedule.
That act was from time to time amended, until in 1882 by an act of that
year the whole of the earlier acts were repealed and consolidated. A few
ancient corporations which were not enumerated in the schedule to the
act of 1835 continued to exist after that year, but by an act of 1883
all of these, save such as should obtain charters before 1886, were
abolished, the result being that all boroughs are now subject to the act
of 1882. A place is still created a borough by royal charter on the
petition of the inhabitants, and when that is done the provisions of the
act of 1882 are applied to it by the charter itself. The charter also
fixes the number of councillors, the boundaries of the wards (if any),
and assigns the number of councillors to each ward, and provides
generally for the time and manner in which the act of 1882 is first to
come into operation. The charter is supplemented by a scheme which makes
provision for the transfer to the new borough council of the powers and
duties of existing authorities, and generally for the bringing into
operation of the act of 1882. If the scheme is opposed by the prescribed
proportion (one-twentieth) of the owners and ratepayers of the proposed
new borough, it has to be confirmed by parliament. The governing body in
a borough is the council elected by the burgesses.

Officers.

The qualification of a burgess has been incidentally mentioned in
connexion with that of a county elector, and need not be further
noticed. A borough councillor must be qualified in the same manner as
a county councillor, and he is disqualified in the same way, with this
addition, that a peer or ownership voter is not qualified as such, and
that a person is disqualified for being a borou