The writs of Quo Warranto which had been brought a few years before for the purpose of crushing the Whig party had been condemned by every impartial man.

Yet those writs had at least the semblance of justice; for they were brought against ancient municipal bodies; and there were few ancient municipal bodies in which some abuse, sufficient to afford a pretext for a penal proceeding, had not grown up in the course of ages.

But the corporations now to be attacked were still in the innocence of infancy.

The oldest among them had not completed its fifth year.

It was impossible that many of them should have committed offences meriting disfranchisement.