orough councils and the
parish vestries serve as local authorities. While areas of common
administration still very much larger than the county comprise, among
others, the districts of the Metropolitan Water Board and of the
Metropolitan Police. The jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Police
extends over all parishes within fifteen miles of Charing Cross, an
area of almost 700 square miles.[274]

[Footnote 274: For excellent descriptions of the
government of London see Munro, Government of
European Cities, 339-379 (bibliography, 395-402),
and Lowell, Government of England, II., 202-232.
Valuable works are G. L. Gomme, Governance of
London: Studies on the Place occupied by London in
English Institutions (London, 1907); ibid., The
London County Council: its Duties and Powers
according to the Local Government Act of 1888
(London, 1888); A. MacMorran, The London Government
Act (London, 1899); A. B. Hopkins, Boroughs of the
Metropolis (London, 1900); and J. R. Seager,
Government of London under the London Government
Act (London, 1904). A suggestive article is G. L.
Fox, The London County Council, in _Yale Review_,
May, 1895.]

PART II.--GERMANY (p. 193)

CHAPTER IX

THE EMPIRE AND ITS CONSTITUTION

I. POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT PRIOR TO 1848

*202. Napoleonic Transformations.*--Among the political achievements of
the past hundred years few exceed in importance, and none surpass in
interest, the creation of the present German Empire. The task of
German unification may be regarded as having been brought formally to
completion upon the occasion of the memorable ceremony of January 18,
1871, when, in the presence of a brilliant concourse of princes and
generals gathered in the Hall of Mirrors in the palace of the French
kings at Versailles, William I., king of Prussia, was proclaimed
German Emperor. Back of the dramatic episode at Versailles, however,
lay a long course of nationalizing development, of which the
proclamation of an Imperial sovereign was but the culminating event.
The beginnings of the making of the German Empire of to-day are to be
traced from a period