EDITED BY J. E. SYMES, M.A. AN OUTLINE OF ENGLISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT University Extension Series UNDER the above title MESSRS METHUEN are publishing a series of books on Historical, Literary, and Scientific subjects. The University Extension Movement has shown the possibility of treating History, Literature, and Science in a way that is at once popular and scholarly. The writers in this series aim at a similar combination. Each volume will be complete in itself, and the subjects will be treated by competent writers in a broad and philosophic spirit. Crown 8vo. The following Volumes are ready! THE INDUSTRIAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND. H. DE B. GIBBINS, M.A. Fourth Edition Revised. With Maps and Plans. 3S. A HISTORY OF POLITICAL ECONOMY IN ENGLAND: from Adam Smith to Arnold Toynbee. L. L. PRICE, M.A. Second Edition. 2s. 6d. PROBLEMS OF POVERTY. An Inquiry into the Industrial Conditions of the Poor. Second Edition. J. A. HOBSON, M.A. 2s. 6d. "The object of this volume is to collect, arrange, and examine some of the leading facts and forces in modern industrial life which have a direct bearing upon Poverty, and to set in the light they afford some of the suggested palliatives and remedies."-Extract from Author's Preface. VICTORIAN POETS. AMY SHARP, Newnham College, Cambridge. 2s. 6d. Chapters on Browning, Tennyson, Swinburne, Mrs Browning, A. H. Clough, Matthew Arnold, Rossetti, Wm. Morris, and others. PSYCHOLOGY. F. S. GRANGER, M.A. THE EVOLUTION OF PLANT LIFE: Lower Forms. An Introduction to the Study of Cryptogamic Botany. G. MASSEE. 2s. 6d. "The aim of the present book is to briefly indicate the prominent features, structural and physiological, that characterize plant life."-Extract from Author's Preface. 2s. 6d. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. J. E. SYMES, M.A., Principal of University College, Nottingham. With Map of France. 2s. 6d. 2s. 6d. AIR AND WATER. Professor V. B. LEWES, M.A. Illustrated. ENGLISH TRade and finance in the Seventeenth century. AGRICULTURAL BOTANY. M. C. POTTER, M.A. Illustrated. 3s. 6d. THE MECHANICS OF DAILY LIFE. V. P. SELLS, M.A. Illustrated. 2s. 6d. ELECTRICAL SCIENCE. GEORGE J. BURCH, B.A. Illustrated. 3s. THE CHEMISTRY OF FIRE. M. M. PATTISON MUIR, M.A. Illustrated. 2s. 6d. THE EARTH: An Introduction to Physiography. E. W. SMALL, M.A. 2s. 6d. INSECT LIFE. F. V. THEOBALD, M.A, F.E.S. Illustrated. 2s. 6d. 2s. 6d. METHUEN & CO., 36 ESSEX STREET, W.C. OF ENGLISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT BY EDWARD JENKS, M.A, FELLOW OF King's college, cambridge; BARRISTER-AT-LAW; PROFEssor of Methuen & Co. 36 ESSEX STREET, LONDON, W.C. 1894 PREFACE THIS little book is the outcome of a course of lay lectures delivered in University College, Liverpool, a few months ago, under the joint auspices of the Corporation of the city and the Liverpool Board of Legal Studies. Its aim is at once modest and ambitious. On the one hand, it professes to give nothing more than the bare skeleton of the English system of Local Government. On the other, it does attempt to state, in Christian English and in concise form, the outlines of a subject usually relegated to the fathomless abysses of those professional treatises which Charles Lamb (had he been required to pronounce judgment upon them) would assuredly have classed as biblia abiblia-books which are no books. I say "usually," for it would ill become me to ignore the debt which the English citizen of ten years ago owed to the admirable little volume of Judge Chalmers, now, by reason of changes in the law, out of date, and, by reason of its own merits, out of print. And, though county and parish councils have brought upon us a shower of practical manuals, I think there is room for a book which shall aim at giving to the non-professional citizen some reasonably coherent ideas concerning that |