Democratic Sentinel, Volume 1, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 June 1877 — Freedom of the City of London. [ARTICLE]

Freedom of the City of London.

This extraordinary liquor, which has just been presented Gen. Grant in a gold box, is a token of esteem which has never before been conferred upon an American. The city of London is a municipality within a metropolis, and is ruled by its own government, founded upon the votes of its freemen, while the rest of the mighfe* capital of Great Britain, including the enormous majority of its inhabitants and the greater part of its area, is governed by Parliamentary authority. Within the city limits the Lord Mayor takes precedence of all the royal family, nor can the sovexeign enter those limits save with his formal permission. The citizens of Loudon have many rights and privileges of tlieir own, and it lins long been the custom of the city to offer the warrant of their franchise, as being the most precious thing the corporation possesses, to eminent personages whom they desired to honor. The process is for the citizens, meeting in what is called common hall, to vote to bestow this warrant. The personage to be honored by it is then notified, and upon some convenient public occasion he is expected to appear before the City Chamberlain, who in London is the conservator of the “chamber” or treasury of the city and the guardian and supervisor of all apprentices. Gen. Grant will be duly brought into. the presence of this functionary; the clerk and officers of the chamber will put their names down with his in the proper book as his “compurgators,” making themselves responsible for his good citizenship ; the Chamberlain will administer to him the oath of fidelity, shake hands with him, and give him in a gold box a slip of parchment warranting to him, and to his children dwelling within seven miles of the city, the franchise of a freeman of London. Under this franchise, Gen. Grant will be at liberty to carry on any retail trade within the limits of the city of London without being taxed at the gates on the goods he brings in ; he will be exempted, also, from compulsory service in the British army or navy. If he elects to live within the city limits—rather a long way from the West end, which is making so much of him just now—he will be free from tolls and customs throughout all England and parts of the sea ; and his children, being left orphans, will have the right to become wards of. the city, and to put their property for safe keeping into the city chamber. As a citizen of London he will find himself in illustrious company. Bluclier and the Emperor Alexander, Thiers and the third Napoleon received this franchise, as he is about to receive it, as a compliment to themselves and to their respective countries, and a great many British peers hold it by inheritance. —Springfield Republican.