t 100 water-colour paintings presented in 1899, and
some 3000 prints and drawings relating to Wales. In 1905 Cardiff was
selected by a privy council committee to be the site of a state-aided
national museum for Wales, the whole contents of the museum and art
gallery, together with a site in Cathays Park, having been offered by
the corporation for the purpose. A charter providing for its government
was granted on the 19th of March 1907. In Cathays Park there is also a
"gorsedd" or bardic circle of huge monoliths erected in connexion with
the eisteddfod of 1899.

The other public buildings of the town include the infirmary founded in
1837, the present buildings being erected in 1883, and subsequently
enlarged; the sanatorium, the seamen's hospital, the South Wales
Institute of Mining Engineers (which has a library) built in 1894, the
exchange, an institute for the blind, a school for the deaf and dumb,
and one of the two prisons for the county (the other being at Swansea).
There are a technical school, an intermediate school for boys and
another for girls, a "higher-grade" and a pupil teachers' school. A
musical festival is held triennially.

In the business part the buildings are also for the most part imposing
and the thoroughfares spacious, while the chief suburban streets are
planted with trees. The Taff is spanned by two bridges, one a
four-arched bridge rebuilt in 1858-1859 leading to Llandaff, and the
other a cantilever with a central swinging span of 190 ft. 8 in.

In virtue of its being the shire-town, Cardiff acquired in 1535 the
right to send one representative to parliament, which it did until 1832,
from which date Cowbridge and Llantrisant have been joined with it as
contributory boroughs returning one member. The great sessions for the
county were during their whole existence from 1542 to 1830 held at
Cardiff, but the assizes (which replaced them) have since then been held
at Swansea and Cardiff alternately, as also are the quarter sessions for
Glamorgan. The borough has a separate commission of the peace, having a
stipendiary magistrate since 1858. It was granted a separate court of
quarter sessions in 1890, it was constituted a county borough in 1888,
and, by letters patent dated the 28th of October 1905, it was created a
city and the dignity of lord mayor conferred on its chief magistrate.
The corporation consists of ten aldermen and thirty councillors, and the
area of the municipal borough is 8408 acre