ABSTRACT
On their return to power, in April, 1835, the Whig ministers had, promised two leading measures during the session. We have pursued the history of one. The other is the large and just measure which, next to reform of Parliament, is their chief title to honorable remembrance. It was during the session of 1835 that the Municipal Reform Bill was carried. This measure could not precede parliamentary reform; but it was sure to follow it. It could not precede parliamentary reform, because a large proportion of members were sent by the corrupt boroughs, where corporation abuses were the most flagrant; and to attack those abuses was to attack parliamentary corruption itself, in the presence of the delegates of that corruption. The abolition of abuses, flagrant as they might be, was not, however, the most weighty consideration with the advocates of municipal reform.
