bought, and all is very brisk and up-to-date. The old town hall is now
deemed a very poor and inadequate building. It is small, inconvenient,
and unsuited to the taste of the municipal councillors, whose ideas
have expanded with their trade. The Mayor and Corporation meet, and
decide to build a brand-new town hall replete with every luxury and
convenience. The old must vanish.

And yet, how picturesque these ancient council chambers are. They
usually stand in the centre of the market-place, and have an
undercroft, the upper storey resting on pillars. Beneath this shelter
the market women display their wares and fix their stalls on market
days, and there you will perhaps see the fire-engine, at least the old
primitive one which was in use before a grand steam fire-engine had
been purchased and housed in a station of its own. The building has
high pointed gables and mullioned windows, a tiled roof mellowed with
age, and a finely wrought vane, which is a credit to the skill of the
local blacksmith. It is a sad pity that this "thing of beauty" should
have to be pulled down and be replaced by a modern building which is
not always creditable to the architectural taste of the age. A law
should be passed that no old town halls should be pulled down, and
that all new ones should be erected on a different site. No more
fitting place could be found for the storage of the antiquities of the
town, the relics of its old municipal life, sketches of its old
buildings that have vanished, and portraits of its worthies, than the
ancient building which has for so long kept watch and ward over its
destinies and been the scene of most of the chief events connected
with its history.

Happily several have been spared, and they speak to us of the old
methods of municipal government; of the merchant guilds, composed of