Mi 



MUMPS. 



MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS. 



830 



used wax (Herod., i. 140 ; Cicero, ' Tusc.,' i. 45) ; the Assyrians honey 

 (Strabo, xvi.), and the Jews embalmed their kings Asa and Zedekiah 

 with spicea (2 Chron., xvi. 14; Jerem., xxxiv. 5). The body of our 

 Lord was anointed with spices (John, six. 39, 40). Aristobulus was 

 preserved in honey (Joseph., xiv., c. 7) ; and Alexander the Great was 

 embalmed with wax and honey (Statius Silv., iii.<2, 117). The Romans 

 occasionally as in the case of Poppsea (Tacit., ' An.,' xvi. 6) embalmed 

 the body, and bodies so prepared have been found near the Appian Way 

 and at Albano. Certain bodies have been found dried by the effects of 

 natural situations, as the corpses of the Spaniards and Mexicans fallen 

 in fights (Humboldt, 'Ansicht der Natur.,' 12mo, Tub. 1808, p. 509); 

 those frozen by cold in the morgue of the convent at St. Gothard 

 (Gannal, ' Hist. d'Embaum.,' p. 53) ; others discovered in 1785 in the 

 church of the Innocents at Toulouse (Puymaurin, ' Acad. de Toul.,' 

 1787 ; Magnus, 'Das Einbals.' p. 15) ; at Bourdeaux ; in the cloisters 

 of the Capuchins at Palermo (Smyth, ' Sicily,' p. 88) ; those in the 

 vaults of St. Michan's Church at Dublin ; that of Aurora, Countess of 

 KbnigHmark, at Quedlinburg, others at Haliar, and at Strasburg, &c. 

 Embalmed bodies of monarchs of the middle ages and of the last 

 centuries have been occasionally found. 



The only people who adopted a mode of preserving the body like the 

 Egyptians are the Guanches, the ancient inhabitants of the Canary 

 Isles. These bodies, called xaxos, had the viscera removed through a 

 flank incision made by a stone called tabmta. The belly was then filled 

 with absorbent vegetable powder and salt ; a salve of goats'-fat, the 

 rind of figs, pitch, pumice, and a kind of euphorbium, and the 

 Clienopodiu.ni: ambrosioidts were used in the preparation, which was con- 

 tinued for 14 days (Bory St.-Viucent, ' Essai sur les Isles Fortunes,' 

 4to, Paris, 1807, ii., p. 56; Magnus, 'das Einbals.' p. 71), the body 

 being dried in the sun or by a stove. When thus prepared, the 

 mummies, adjusted in a squatting position, were sewn up in sheep or 

 goat skins ; those of the poorer classes being joined together in one 

 envelope, while those of the richer were placed in their dress tamarco 

 in cages hollowed out of savine wood, and placed under a kind of 

 pyramid. The bodies are not bandaged, but are excessively light, being 

 quite dried and tanned, with a slight aromatic smell ; the features are 

 distorted, and not well preserved. Numerous catacombs are found 

 filled with them, and as many as 1000 were discovered at Teneriffe. 

 (Humboldt and Bonpland, ' Reise,' 12mo, Wien., 1825, i., 225.) On 

 the American continent, probably owing to the greater dryness of the 

 air, preserved bodies have been found, as at Durango, Bogata, and those 

 of the Coroados Indians on the Paraiba River, in the Brazils, the bodies 

 of whose chiefs, deposited with their ornaments and favourite animals, 

 in a couching posture, in large covered jars, are long preserved. 

 ( Debret, ' Voy. au Bresil,' i. 19.) Several dried bodies of the ancient 

 Peruvians, wrapped up in coloured cotton bandages, have been found 

 at Arica and other places in Peru ; but their preservation is due to 

 the lightness of the soil and the air, and not to any artificial process. 

 In the South Sea, at Nukahiwa, bodies have been temporarily preserved 

 for a few months in cocoa-nut oil (Langsdorf, ' Reise um die Welt,' i. 

 208) ; and the Birmese know how to keep the body for a short time by 

 means of pitch dhamma ; but such processes scarcely render the body 

 a mummy. It is not necessary here to detail the modern processes 

 employed for the preservation of the body for museums of anatomy 

 and natural history, as such embalmed bodies are in no sense mummies, 

 and the European climates are too unfavourable to permit their pre- 

 servation except under circumstances of peculiar care. The subject of 

 mummies has been treated by many authors since the commencement 

 of the 16th century. The principal works treating of the subject in 

 general are Pettigrew, 'History of Mummies,' 4to, Lond., 1834; 

 Uannal, ' Traite d'Embaumement,' 8vo, Paris, 1838; Philadelphia, 

 1840 ; Magnus, ' das Einbalsamiren der Leichen,' 8vo, Braunsch., 

 1839. 



MUMPS, an inflammation of the parotid, and often, at the same 

 tune, of the other salivary glands, of contagious or epidemic origin. 

 The inflammation, and the fever by which it is accompanied, generally 

 increase for about four days, and then begin to subside ; and after 

 four days more, the disease is commonly at an end. The affection has 

 a tendency to metastasis, that is, to pass suddenly from the organ first 

 affected jto some other. The treatment required is very simple ; 

 quietude, abstinence, seclusion from cold, the application of poultices 

 or other warm substances, or, in severe cases, of leeches to the swelling, 

 are all the means that are usually necessary. 



MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS. A municipal corporation, as at 

 present understood, may be defined to be a body politic formed for the 

 purpose of local government. Other bodies politic or corporate exist for 

 the.advancement of religion.learning, or commerce. The municipal cor- 

 poration is concerned with the regulation of the social and financial affairs 

 of a town, or limited body of citizens. The origin of such bodies in 

 this country may be traced to the times of the Roman occupation, 

 that people having planted municipia or town-communities in this 

 island, as in other parts of their dominions. 



The Anglo-Saxons appear to have adopted these institutions, finding 

 them entirely congenial to their previous customs, and, in fact, their 

 municipal organisation was not confined to the towns or fortified cities 

 alone, but pervaded the whole territory, which was divided iuto 

 districts in the management of the affairs of which every freeman 

 had a vote. 



The Norman kings endeavoured to effect a centralisation of political 

 power by substituting bailiffs of their own in the place of the elective 

 borouyh- or port-reves, who during the Saxon times presided over the 

 various town communities. To rid themselves of the oppression of 

 these officers, the towns offered to pay a larger revenue to the king's 

 exchequer, than was extracted from them by the bailiffs, provided 

 they were allowed to collect it themselves. Thus the right of self- 

 government was gradually repurchased from the crown, the obnoxious 

 title of bailiff being in most cases done away with, and that of mayor 

 adopted to designate the chief officer of a town. 



For several centuries after the Conquest, a select body or corporation 

 in the more modern sense of the term, within and distinct from the 

 township itself, was unknown. The chief object of the Norman sove- 

 reigns in granting to the burgesses or townsmen the right of electing 

 a chief magistrate of their own, was to obtain punctual payment of a 

 stipulated rent, and to insure at the same time in each locality as much 

 internal peace and order as was requisite to enable the community to 

 perform this stipulation with exactness. The municipal body consisted 

 of the resident and trading inhabitants, paying scot and, bearing lot, 

 that is, sharing in the payment of local taxes and the performance of 

 local duties. Strangers residing temporarily in the town for purposes 

 of trade had no voice in its affairs, as they incurred no liability to its 

 burdens. Birth, apprenticeship, or marriage within the township, were 

 titles to citizenship, as evidences of the essential requirement of estab- 

 lished residence. Titles by purchase were obtainable by individuals 

 not previously connected with the community, or who were per- 

 manently resident elsewhere. In many of the greater towns, the sub- 

 division of the general community into guilds of particular trades, 

 called, in many instances since the Norman era, companies, opened up 

 avenues for admission to the general franchise of the municipality. 

 In their greatest prosperity these fraternities, more especially in the 

 metropolis, were important bodies, in which the whole community was 

 enrolled; each had its distinct common-hall, made by-laws for the 

 regulation of its particular trade, and had its common property ; while 

 the individuals composing them, as members of the great general 

 community, remained the same. 



In course of time, and after the practice had arisen of the towns 

 sending representatives to take counsel with the king in parliament, it 

 became the policy of the crown to give a more distinct entity to the 

 governing powers in the various boroughs, and to form close bodies, 

 irresponsible to the general community. In most cases, by an arbitrary 

 stretch of power, the various guilds were dissolved, and their pro- 

 pertyjconfiscated and transferred to the newly-constituted corporation. 

 Such bodies were found to be infinitely more manageable than the 

 freemen, and by their means a great influence was obtained by 

 the sovereign in the appointment of representatives. This policy was 

 pursued by the princes of the Tudor line, and was continued and im- 

 proved upon by the Stuarts. The right was first assumed of remoulding 

 by governing-charters the municipal constitution of certain boroughs, 

 which had either ceased to send representatives to parliament or had 

 never exercised that privilege, but upon which this right was now con- 

 ferred. Most of these charters vested the local government, and some- 

 times the immediate election of the parliamentary representatives, in 

 small councils, originally nominated by the crown, to be ever after 

 stilr-eletited. 



The next step was to claim the same power over municipalities 

 which had always exercised the right of sending representatives. The 

 ignorance or subserviency of the law courts in the reigns of Elizabeth 

 and James I., favoured this design. In the 12th year of the latter 

 monarch, it was judicially declared that the king could by his chartnr 

 incorporate the people of a town in the form of select classes and com- 

 monalties and vest in the whole corporation the right of sending repre- 

 sentatives to) parliament, at the same time restraining the exercise 

 of that right to these select classes; and such was thenceforward 

 the form of all the corporations which royal charters created or 

 re-modelled. 



The perversion of municipal institutions to political ends, the 

 sacrifice of local interests to party purposes, the alienation of corporate 

 property, and other flagrant abuses flowing from the whole powers of 

 the corporations being vested in select bodies, had for more than two 

 centuries been a matter of constant and nearly universal complaint before 

 a remedy was applied by the statute 5 & 6 Will. IV. c. 76, commonly 

 known as " the Municipal Reform Act," but of which the title is, " An 

 Act to provide for the regulation of Municipal Corporations in England 

 and Wales." Upon this Act a number of others have since beeu grafted, 

 by which various special objects of municipal government are provided 

 for, the whole together constituting a most beneficial code, of which 

 the full results still however remain to be seen. We will endeavour to 

 state succinctly the nature and rules of the existing municipal corpo- 

 rations under the Act 5 & 6 Will. IV. c. 76. 



These corporations consist of a mayor, aldermen, and burgesses, by 

 which names they have perpetual succession. 



liurgesses. The qualifications of a burgess, the want of any one of 

 which is fatal to the claim to that appellation, are as follows ; The 

 burgess must be a male, and of full age. He must be found on the 

 last day of August in any year to have occupied a house, warehouse, 

 counting-house, or shop within the borough during that year and the 

 whole of the two preceding years. He must during that period have 



