the continental system of home government is being insinuated into
this hitherto free country. Yet a few years of unchecked progress in
that direction, and it will be proposed to appoint crown officers to
preside over county and town, city and borough. The approaches to
absolute power, under the less alarming title of centralization,
though insidious, have long been apparent to all who study the
workings of system-mongers. Unless a vigorous stand be now made
against these continued encroachments of ministerial and oligarchical
influence, the middle classes will, ere long, have to content
themselves with being literally a "nation of shopkeepers," without any
object of honourable ambition in view, without any hope of obtaining
distinction and eminence in the annals of their country, and reduced
to the one narrow pursuit of "making money." Are the free burgesses of
London prepared thus to sacrifice their birthright to gratify the whim
or envy of a Whig ex-minister?

Conservancy of the Thames.

To the disciples of the modern doctrine that ancient charters were
given only to be abolished, and parliamentary statutes enacted only to
be repealed, it is idle to state that the first charter of James I.
acknowledged that the conservation of the water of the Thames had been
held time out of mind by the mayor and commonalty. Those, however, who
still reverence the ancient landmarks, and regard with respect the
honest feelings and manly wisdom of their ancestors, will not treat so
lightly claims derived from immemorial usage and prescriptive right.
>From time, then, "whereof the memory of man runneth not to the
contrary," the conservancy of the Thames has been one of the duties
and privileges of the mayoralty of the City of London. The
jurisdiction of the Thames conservator extends from Staines Bridge to