Urban customs appear of more interest and importance than rural usages by reason of the greater complexity of relations implied by the interdependence of members of a populous community. In the country the organization of society is more simple, and the life of the fields, if more tranquil, must always be less vivid, and, if the term may be allowed, less conscious than that of the town. Nothing, however, is more certain than that the formation of towns came after and was in most instances the progeny of rural conditions. It is an amazing circumstance that not until the middle of the last century did the great city of Manchester emancipate itself from the last traces of feudal subjection by the purchase of manorial and market rights. Just as the word _pecunia_ is derived from _pecus_, just as the merchant's mark is in all likelihood descended from that of the yeoman, even so in many municipal appointments there is strong evidence of the once all-prevalent agricultural element. If we turn to London, we shall discover that its administration was conducted, to a large extent, on country and manorial lines. The necessary result was chaos. As Mr. J. H. Round observes, "The genius of the Anglo-Saxon system was ill adapted, or rather wholly unsuitable, to urban life ... while of unconquerable persistence and strength in small manageable rural communities, it was bound to, and did, break down when applied to large and growing towns, whose life lay not in agriculture, but in trade. In a parish, in a hundred, the Englishman was at home, but in a town, and still more in such a town as London, he found himself at his wits' end." But the practical spirit, the common sense of our race, successfully asserted itself--e.g., in the case of the Sheriffs, who in London are elected by the citizens. In general, sheriffs are appointed by the Crown, and, as the name implies, they are strictly county officers. In the case of the special franchise of the Fitzwalters we have seen how eagerly the Corporation embraced the opportunity afforded by the sale of Baynard Castle to secure greater freedom and homogeneity in the government of the City.