ked by the
adoption of the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, abolishing outdoor
relief for the able-bodied, providing for the regrouping of parishes
in "poor-law unions," and establishing a national Poor Law Commission.
The administration of relief within the unions was intrusted all but
exclusively to newly created boards of guardians, composed in part of
the justices of the peace sitting _ex-officio_ and in part of members
specially elected by the rate-payers. The arrangements set up by the
act proved very successful and they survive almost intact at the
present day. The second notable change was that effected by the
Municipal Corporations Act of 1835. The enfranchising of large numbers
of the townspeople in 1832 led inevitably to demand for the
democratization of the aristocratic borough governments, and within
three years the demand was met in a statute so sweeping as to justify
the assertion that with its enactment the modern history of the
English town begins.[254] Sixty-nine of the old corporate towns, by
reason of their unimportance, were now deprived of the character of
boroughs. The city of London was not touched, but elsewhere all
municipal corporations were broadened so as to personify legally the
entire population of the borough. The time-honored municipal oligarchy
was broken down by the giving of the franchise to all rate-payers, the
town councils were made wholly elective, trading monopolies and
privileges were swept away, and a variety of other reforms were (p. 179)
introduced. With the adoption of this important measure, however, the
work of reform came for a time to a halt, and the widely assailed
system of county government through nominated magistrates in quarter
sessions survived until 1888.[255]

[Footnote 254: Lowell, Government of England, II.,
144.]

[Footnote 255: The history of the local
institutions of England prior to 1835 is related in
detail in two comprehensive works: H. A. Merewether
and A. J. Stephens, History of the Boroughs and
Municipal Corporations of the United Kingdom, 3
vols. (London, 1835) and S. and B. Webb, English
Local Government from the Revolution to the
Municipal Corporations Act, 3 vols. (London and New
York, 1904-1908). The first of these was written to