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94 THE CITY GOVERNMENT and historians well acguainted with the subject, in which Roman London plays a part so important that it would seem to have crammed an immense Civic experience into those fifty years of doubt, disorder, and warfare. Two considerations, however, need only be stated here in excuse for those who do not believe that Roman institutions of any kind survived till the time of Alfred. One of these consists 1n the fact that, so far as. we are acquainted with Roman municipal officers, not a single office exists in London which answers to one of them. And the second consideration is even more weighty. We have no difficulty whatever in tracing back the civic offices to their origin, and we find that origin in the ordinary organisation of any English shire. The burden of proof therefore rests on those who put forward the Roman view, which, fasciHe nating as it is, is wanting in a single Bin CLOTHWOKKERS' HALL, MINCING LANE, SHOWING ARMS OVER DOORWAY
