The Times of Tuesday made a remarkable suggestion as to
the housing of the London poor. It seems that the London County Council ha e no power to erect buildings outside its jurisdiction, and is confined to localities where sites are dear, and where the obligation to rehouse the ejected constantly interferes with improvement. The Times suggests, therefore, that the estates which the Council may buy outside its juris- diction, if devoted to housing, should be considered to be legally within it. There is no patent objection to this plan, which is a reversion to the old practice of considering con- questa or acquisitions within the original jurisdiction of the conqueror. The county of Cromarty, for example, which looks on the map as if it had been shot out of a pepper-box, is made up of the acquisitions of the Clan Mackenzie; and till within quite recent times bits of one English county or parish could be found entirely surrounded by the lands of another county or parish. Indeed, the practice is older yet, the boundaries of important communes in France being only the boundaries of ancient Gallo-Roman estates. Anti- quarians, therefore, may vote for the Times' proposal, as well as tnose who, like ourselves, believe that the gEseret of re- housing consists in the word "dispersion."
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