transferred their powers, with others provided by the Act, to the Town Council, as the representative of the ratepayers of the borough, and the Town Council became thenceforward the sole governing authority for all municipal purposes. The Act mentioned further authorised the borrowing of loans for purposes of town improvements and for a system of sewerage, and empowered the Council to levy a special rate for such purposes, in addition to the ordinary municipal rate levied under the Municipal Corporations Act. Ten years later, in 1861, a second Improvement Act invested the Corporation with further powers of administration and of borrowing; and numerous other Acts were subsequently obtained for specific purposes. Among these were the Parks Act, 1854; an order (1873) extending to sixteen the number of Wards in the Borough;--an Act giving the Council power to acquire closed burial grounds and to lay them out as places of public recreation, passed in 1878; Acts for the purchase of the Gas and Water undertakings in 1875; an Act for a Sanitary Improvement Scheme under the provisions of the Artisans’ Dwellings Act, 1876; for the constitution of a Drainage Board, in 1878; and for the issue of Corporation Stock in 1880. The powers of most of these enactments, with additional powers, were embodied in the Birmingham Corporation Consolidation Act of 1883, which, amongst other provisions, abolished the restriction to one penny in the pound previously imposed upon the Free Libraries Rate (under the General Libraries Act) and authorised the Council to conduct a Municipal School of Art. The Consolidation Act, therefore, now constitutes the authority under which (in addition to the powers conferred by general municipal law) the government of the borough is now administered. The following statement, extracted from the “History of the Corporation of Birmingham,” explains the scope and working of the system:-- “The municipal government, under the Charter of Incorporation and the Acts of Parliament relating to municipal corporations, is conducted by a council, consisting of forty-eight councillors and sixteen aldermen.