ABSTRACT
It is usually assumed that to undergo a revolution is a misfortune to be avoided at all costs. But there are circumstances in which to forgo a revolution is a much greater disaster. The failure of London to pass through the municipal revolution of 1835 was a circumstance of this kind. The Municipal Corporations Act of that year transformed the local government of the provincial towns, and laid the basis of municipal democracy as it now exists. The incalculable benefits which followed in the train of this great event have recently been celebrated throughout the country. 1 But London, to which the Royal Commission on Municipal Corporations devoted the whole of its second report, was not included in the Act of 1835. From this calamity the metropolis has never recovered.
