Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/263

 than to another. A true representative reflex of all the better elements which are found in the metropolis, should present a body of men as illustrious as any in the world.

Of what does the metropolis consist? It contains the abode of the sovereign, and of the regal house and household, and of all who compose the court and council of the Queen. It contains the mansions of an ancient and powerful nobility, and their numerous connexions and dependents. In it are all the chief military and civil departments of the army, the navy, the ordnance, and the control of their vast equipments; the public treasury, the mint, and the multitude of offices which are concerned with the receipt of the revenues of the kingdom from foreign and inland trade, and all the subjects of taxation, and for the appropriation and liquidation of the principal and interest of a public debt equal in amount to the value of the fee-simple of the dominions of some not insignificant monarchs,—and with the collection and audit of the public accounts of the empire. In the metropolis are the chief stewardships of the great estates of the crown and its palatinates. In it reside all the functionaries connected with the imperial Parliament,—the secretaries, councils, and officers engaged in communications between the government and its dependencies,—the Canadas, Australasia, Africa, and the Indies,—and with foreign nations. In it are the immense establishments of the Post-office, the great triumph of civilisation,—sowing, daily and hourly, with its myriad hands, the seeds of public and private intelligence gathered from every part of the habitable globe. In the metropolis are the seats of the Courts of Equity and Law, and to it are brought all appeals, in the last resort, from every territory and colony. Here reside the bar, and the other professors of legal science concerned in the supreme administration of justice, and in the settlement and transfer of most of the great properties in the kingdom. In this detail is comprehended but a few of the multitude of conditions and occupations engaged on the affairs