However cordial at the different points where they are brought into contact the relations may be between the old Corporation and the new Council, it is seemingly agreed on all sides that the true method for administering that vast and not yet finally circumscribed area inhabited by what De Quincey once called 'the nation of London,' has still to be devised. The suggestions for future reform are innumerable in quantity and Protean in character. Whether the existing areas of separate control inside or outside the City gates should be maintained; whether they could be replaced conveniently by five or ten, by six or fourteen, separate municipalities; these are the problems that, as in the past, so in the future, seem likely long to divide the minds of Metropolitan reformers. The City Corporation has already divested itself, _e.g._ in its relations with the Commissioners of Sewers, of certain functions which normally belong to a town council. Hence, it has been suggested that this process might be continued till the Lord Mayor and Aldermen practically merged themselves in the existing County Council of the capital. In that event, the administrative jurisdiction of the County Council, instead of stopping abruptly at Temple Bar, as it now does, would stretch from the Strand to the Guildhall. From thence it would radiate throughout the region generally spoken of as the City. There does not seem much likelihood of the fulfilment of this contingency. Such a scheme could not work well unless it were embraced with practical unanimity by those whom it immediately concerned. The Lord Mayor of London, and the authorities gathered round him, naturally regard with jealousy even the apparent infringement of their historic prerogatives and immemorial dignities. Nor in the interests, not of the City alone, but of the nation at large is it desirable that anything should be done which might actually impair the prestige, or even sentimentally wound the vanity of the exceedingly useful, and uniformly patriotic and generous men who are installed by annual succession in the Mansion House. The lofty attributes with which the French press and stage have invested the Lord Mayor are not entirely caricature. They indicate corresponding realities. The Lord Mayor has always been and remains to-day far more than the local head of a great municipality. In all parts of the Three Kingdoms, he, with his colleagues, controls territorial estates equal in extent, and far more than equal in revenue to a Continental Duchy. The Guildhall, with its library and museum; the Mansion House; schools and institutions like the City of London School, Ward's City of London School for Girls, the Guildhall School of Music; these are only a few of the foundations that are naturally presided over by the Lord Mayor. They all exist, not so much for the glory of the City, as for the service of the community. Possibly it might be useful to classify the complicated functions of the Sovereign of the City. It would then be seen how far the principle of devolution could be applied to his various attributes in their daily exercise. There are those who have imagined that within the empire of the Lord Mayor of the future there might be created subordinate municipalities which would act as local committees under his central control.