and proceeded very slowly and hesitatingly. Though it nominally existed for years, it really never made any advance. It was unpopular, both in town and country; the Press were almost unanimous in protesting against its existence, and when its extraordinary powers were subjected to the analysis of calm and careful consideration, the wonder was how the Imperial Parliament could have enacted a measure so brimful of the impracticable. An extremely objectionable, not to say unconstitutional, feature of the system was, that the initiation of taxation rested with a batch of irresponsible nominees. The legal status of the Council was, besides, impugned by the Press; and there were not wanting members of the Bar to declare that the acts of the Council, if it did act, could, in many respects, be successfully resisted in the Supreme Court. However, the Councillors occupied a position of masterly inactivity, and seemed reluctant to provoke hostility. So they held their presumed powers in abeyance, and never gave any actual effect to their functions beyond holding an occasional meeting. As vacancies occurred they were filled by going through the farce of an election, always uncontested, and sometimes attended by half-a-dozen persons, never more, but often less. And so our District Councils lived—or, rather, slept—on in a state of partial coma, now and then broken by a growl, as if to show they were still alive, until the hour arrived for their coup de grace, administered by the same agency that generated them.
