When first they made their appearance the inhabitants of Cambridge had just bought the right to call themselves by this dignified name. This bargain was the upshot of a Royal visit in 1207 from King John, who, in consideration of a payment of 250 marks, (equivalent to L5,000 at the present value of money,) granted Cambridge a Charter of Incorporation, with the right to be governed by a Provost and bailiffs of their own (instead of by the King's Sheriff), and to regulate their own markets. Twenty years later, (by a further contribution to the royal purse,) the Provost acquired the higher title of Mayor. But almost simultaneously, his prerogatives began to be curtailed by the rising power of the University, to whose "Taxers" was given, in 1231, the sole right of fixing the rents which might be demanded for lodgings from the inrushing swarm of students; while the regulation of the market weights and measures became vested in the Proctors. The authority of the Taxers died out when the Collegiate system became universal, but has been revived in recent days by the "Lodging-house Syndicate": that of the Proctors over the Market has become obsolete; not so long, however, but that, to this day, there may be seen, in the possession of the Senior Proctor for each year, an iron cylinder, a yard long and an inch in diameter, which was, not so many decades ago, the standard test for the dimensions of every roll of butter sold in Cambridge. For butter in Cambridge was retailed by the inch; a custom which still lingers on sporadically amongst our vendors. The student population speedily became far more numerous than the townsfolk, and their accommodation must have been no small problem. At first the need was met wholly by private enterprise: University lodgers thronged the private houses and the annexes, or "hostels," as they are named, run up for their sole use by speculative landlords. These hostels gradually attained to more or less of official recognition by the University, and paved the way for the setting up of Colleges. [Illustration: _St. Michael's and All Angels._]