somewhat anomalous, has some of the usual powers of a regular municipal corporation, and some of the characteristies of the county organizations in many of the states. The New England town affords, perhaps, an example of as pure a democracy as anywhere exists. All of the qualified inhabitants meet and directly act upon and manage, or direct the management of, their own local concerns. This form of government was adopted at a very early period, and is firmly adhered to and deeply cherished by the people of the New England states. The result has demonstrated how well adapted it is to promote the well-being of the communities that for so long a space of time have thus governed themselves. The remarkable growth and prosperity of the New England states, not the most favored by nature, and the intelligence and character of the people, are facts known to all; and it is not strange that these results should be attribof schools and the promotion of education within the limits of the town." Ib. sec. 9. They may make contracts necessary and convenient for the exercise of their corporate powers," and may dispose of their corporate property. Ib. secs. 8, 9. "They may, at legal meetings, grant and vote such sums as they judge necessary, for the following purposes: For the support of town schools; for the relief, &c., and employment of the poor; for the laying out and discontinuing and repair of highways; for procuring the writing and publishing of town histories; for burial grounds; for encouraging the destruction of noxious animals; for all other necessary charges arising therein." Ib. sec. 10. "May make necessary by-laws, not repugnant to the laws of the state, for directing and managing the prudential affairs, preserving the peace and good order, and maintaining the internal police thereof." Ib. sec. 11. But such by-laws must, before taking effect, be approved by the Superior Court, or, in vacation, a judge thereof. Ib. sec. 14. They are binding upon all within the limits of the town, strangers as well as inhabitants. Ib. sec. 15.

2. Corporate or Town Meetings.-"Every male citizen of twenty-one years of age and upwards (except paupers, &c.), who has resided within the state one year, and within the town in which he claims the right to vote, six months, and who has paid a state or county tax, &c., shall have a right to vote upon all questions at all meetings for the transaction of town affairs, and no other person shall be entitled to vote." Ib. sec. 19. "The annual meeting of each town shall be held in February, March, or April; and other meetings at such time as the selectmen may order." 1b. sec. 20. Warrants issue for all meetings, under the hands of the selectmen, directed to constables or others, who notify such meeting in the manner prescribed by the by-laws or vote of the town. 1b. sec. 21. "The warrant shall express the time and place of the meeting, and the subjects to be there acted upon;" * "and nothing acted upon shall have a legal operation

uted in a large measure, to this system of local popular government. But, in the course of time, many of the towns, or portions thereof, grew to be large and populous, and the system of meetings of the electors, in their original capacity, became inconvenient and almost impracticable. When the population of a town or place exceeds 10,000 or 12,000 persons, the need for the representative system is urgently felt. Accordingly, in the New England states, there are now, in addition to towns, a large number of incorporated cities, with charters or constituent statutes, organized upon the usual representative model, with a legislative or governing body, and an executive head and subordinate officers. The people of the large city of Boston, in particular, were wedded to the town system, and struggled long against the change to the representative plan; and five successive times between unless the subject matter thereof is contained in the warrant." Ib. sec. 22. If selectmen unreasonably refuse to call a meeting, any justice of the peace may do so upon the application of ten or more legal voters of the town. Ib. sec. 23. Provision is made for moderating and conducting the meeting. 1b. secs. 25-30. Town officers are elected at the annual meeting, who serve for one year, and until others are chosen and qualified. These consist of selectmen, assessors, treasurer, constables, who are ex-officio collectors unless others be specially chosen; field drivers, fence viewers, surveyors of lumber, measurers of wood, unless selectmen appoint, "and all other usual town officers." Ib. sec. 31. Then follows a variety of provisions respecting the duties of these several officers, and the manner of their performance. In addition, there are acts incorporating and establishing cities. "The laws in relation to towns, where not inconsistent with the general or special provisions of the acts establishing cities, apply to them; and cities are subject to the liabilities, and city councils have the powers of towns. The mayor and aldermen shall have the powers and be subject to the liabilities of selectmen, &c., if no other provisions are made in relation thereto." General St. 1860, ch. XIX. 166. "The marked and characteristic distinction between a town organization (in Massachusetts) and that of a city is, that in the former all of the qualified inhabitants meet, deliberate, act, and vote in their natural and personal capacities; whereas, under a city government, this is all done by their representatives." Per Shaw, C. J., in Warren . Charlestown, 2 Gray, 84, 101. As to the origin and power of towns in Massachusetts, consult Commonwealth v. Roxbury, 9 Gray, 451, 1857, opinion of Shaw, C. J., 476, and the valuable note of Mr. (since Judge) Gray, pp. 503, 528; Quincy's Munic. Hist. of Boston, ch. I.; ante, chapter I. Towns were not expressly authorized to sue and be sued until 1694, nor formally incorporated until 1785. Ib. 9 Gray, 511, note "G;" 2 Dane's Ab. 698; Willard v. Newburyport, 12 Pick. 227, 231; Spaulding o. Lowell, 23 Pick. 77, 78. Post, sec. 127, note.

1784 and 1821 rejected well-considered schemes for a city government. The town continued to be governed by meetings of the electors en masse, acting through boards and officers, until the place had forty thousand inhabitants, of whom seven thousand were qualified voters. In 1822, how ever, the legislature, at the desire of a majority of the voters, granted the place a city charter, by which it was provided that the control of its affairs should be in a mayor and city conncil. After this, other towns, from time to time, made the change from the town to the city plan; so that, as be fore observed, we have in the New England states both modes of local administration. The town system is the general one; the city, or representative system, is the exceptional one, and is confined to places of compact population and considerable size.'

No city was incorporated in Massachusetts until after the amendment of the constitution of that state in 1820. Per Shaw, C. J., in Warren v. Charlestown, 2 Gray, 84. After referring to the previous attempts in 1784, 1785, 1791, 1804, and 1815, to change the town government of Boston, Mr. Josiah Quincy, in his Municipal History of Boston, p. 28, continues: "In 1821, the impracticability of conducting the municipal interests of the place, under the form of town government, became apparent to the inhabitants. With a population upwards of forty thousand, and with seven thousand qualified voters, it was evidently impossible calmly to deliberate and act. When a town meeting was held on any exciting subject, in Faneuil Hall, those only who obtained places near the moderator could even hear the discussion. A few busy or interested individuale easily obtained the management of the most important affairs, in an assembly in which the greater, number could have neither voice nor hearing. When the subject was not generally exciting, town meetings were usually composed of the selectmen, the town officers, and thirty or forty inhabitants. Those who thus came were, for the most part, drawn to it from some official duty or private interest, which, when performed or obtained, they generally troubled themselves but little, or not at all, about the other business of the meeting. In assemblies thus composed, by-laws were passed, taxes, to the amount of one hundred or one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, voted, on statements often general in their nature, and on reports, as it respects the majority of voters present, taken upon trust, and which no one had carefully considered except, perhaps, the chairman. In the constitution of the town government there had resulted, in the course of time, from exigency or necessity, a complexity little adapted to produce harmony in action, and an irresponsibility irreconcilable with a wise and efficient con duct of its affairs. On the agents of the town there was no direct check or control; no pledge for fidelity but their own honor and sense of character. The prosperity of the town of Boston, under such a form of government;

§ 12. The character of towns in New England, and in what respects they differ from English Municipal Cor

the few defalcations which had occurred; the frequent, and often, for years, uninterrupted, re-election of the same members to the officiating boards, are conclusive evidence of the prevailing high state of morals and intelligence among the inhabitants." After mentioning the different boards among which the executive power was divided, and which acted independ ently of each other, and which were invested with the expending power, and, in effect, with exercise of the whole power of taxation, Mr. Quincy proceeds: "A conviction of the want of safety and of responsibility in a machine thus complicated and loosely combined, became, at length, so general that the inherited and inveterate antipathy to a city organization began perceptibly to diminish. About this time, also, one of the most common and formal objections to a city organization was removed. The constitution of Massachusetts, which was passed in 1780, contained no express authority to establish a city organization; and, in every attempt to change that of the town, it never failed to be zealously contended that the legislature of the commonwealth possessed no such power. But by the amendments to the constitution, made by the convention of 1820, and adopted by the people, this power was expressly recognized. The question, therefore, now stood on its own merits, and independent of constitutional objections. The debates, also, which occurred in this convention, had a tendency to open the eyes of the inhabitants to their own interests, and to allay some of the long-cherished prejudices against a city organization." In 1821 the people voted to make the change, and measures were immediately taken to obtain the sanction of the legislature. The legisla ture, on the 23d day of February, 1822, passed "An act establishing the city of Boston," commonly called "the city charter." The following is a brief outline of the principal features of this charter, taken from Quincy's Municipal History of Boston, p. 41: 1. The title of the corporation to be, "The City of Boston. 2. The control of all its concerns is vested in a mayor, a board of aldermen, consisting of eight, and common council, of forty-eight inhabitants, to be called, when conjoined, "The City Council." 3. The city to be divided into twelve wards. The mayor and aldermen and common council to be chosen annually, by ballot, by and from inhab itants; four of the common council from and by those of each of the wards 4. The city clerk to be chosen by the city council. 5. The mayor to receive a salary. His duty, to be vigilant and active in causing the laws to be executed; to inspect the conduct of all subordinate officers; to cause carelessness, negligence, and positive violation of the laws to be prosecuted and punished; to summon meetings of either or both boards; to communi cate and recommend measures for the improvement of the finances, the police, health, security, cleanliness, comfort, and ornament of the city. 6. The mayor and aldermen are vested with the administration of the police and executive power of the corporation generally, and with specific enumerated powers. 7. All other powers belonging to the corporation are vested in the mayor, aldermen, and common council, to be exercised by concurrent vote. Post, sec. 127, note.

porations, existing by prescription or special charter, prior to the legislation by parliament in 1835, before mentioned,' and the care to be observed in applying the English cases relating to such corporations to municipal corporations in this country, are well set forth by the learned Chief Justice Perley, in delivering the opinion of the Supreme Court of New Hampshire, in an important case to which we shall again have occasion to allude.' He says: "It is to be observed that municipal corporations in England are broadly distinguished in many important respects from towns in this and the other New England states. There is no uniformity in the powers and duties of English municipal corporations. They were not created and established under any general public law, but the powers and duties of each municipality depended upon its own individual grant or prescription. Their corporate franchises were held of the crown by the tenure of performing the conditions upon which they had been granted, and were liable to forfeiture for breach of the conditions. They indeed answered certain public purposes, as private corporations do which have public duties to perform, and some of them exercised political rights. But they are not like towns (with us) general, political and territorial divisions of the country, with uniform powers and duties, defined and varied, from time to time, by general legislation. Towns (in New England) do not hold their powers ordinarily under any grant from the government to the individual corporation; or by virtue of any contract with the government, or upon any condition, express or implied. They give no assent in their corporate capacity to the laws which impose their public duties or fix their territorial limits." And referring to the case then before the court, he added: "In all that is material to the present inquiry, municipal corporations in England bear much less resemblance to towns in this country than to private corporations which are charged with the performance of public duties, and for these reasons the English authorities on the subject are but remotely applicable to the present case."