It did not, indeed, involve, like the municipal system, the substitution of an Italian for a native institution.

Instead, it permitted the complete remodelling of the native institution by the interpenetration of Italian influences.
We can discern the cantonal system at several points in Britain.

But the British cantons were smaller and less wealthy than those of Gaul, and therefore they have not left their mark, either in monuments or in nomenclature, so clearly as we might desire.

Many inscriptions record the working of the system in Gaul.

Many modern towns--Paris, Reims, Chartres, and thirty or forty others--derive their present names from those of the ancient cantons, and not from those of the ancient towns.
In Britain we find only one such inscription (Fig.