Municipal Government in Ireland : Mediaeval and Modern. By John
J. Webb. (T. Fisher Unwin. be. net.)—As a short history of the rise and development of the Irish boroughs, this book has no small merits. But it is characteristic of the partisanship which disfigures Irish historical writing that the author should devote many pages to the corruption of Irish municipalities in the seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries, but is careful to preserve silence regarding the work of the modern elected bodies whose-constitution he describes. Dublin was a fine city in the eighteenth century ; to-day it is known chiefly for its deplorable slums. if we were to judge the two systems of local government by the.results which they have achieved, the old system which Mr. Webb abuses would not have the worse of the argument in Nationalist Ireland.
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