Precinct

“ In the city of New Orleans, each ward shall constitute a precinct, and in the remaining part of the parish of Orleans, the supervisor of registration for the said parish shall fix both the precincts and voting places in each precinct, and in the parish of Jefferson, the supervisor of registration shall fix both the precincts and the voting places in each precinct; in the parishes of Orleans and Jefferson the supervisor of registration of each parish shall appoint commissioners of election therefor, as in the other parishes. ”

“ Any precinct in any organized county of this state shall have the privilege of voting to aid works of internal improvement, and be entitled to all the privileges conferred upon counties and cities by the provisions of this act; and in such case the precinct election shall be governed in the same manner as is provided in this act, so far as the same is applicable, and the county commissioners shall issue special bonds for such precinct, and the tax to pay the same shall be levied upon the property within the bounds of such precinct. ”

“ When the boundaries of commissioners precincts are changed, each commissioner in office on the effective date of the change, or elected to a term of office beginning on or after the effective date of the change, shall serve in the precinct to which each was elected or appointed for the entire term to which each was elected or appointed, even though the change in boundaries places the person's residence outside the precinct for which he was elected or appointed. ”

“ Q. No, in the First precinct? A. In the First precinct, I think, there is about 20; there is now; there were more than that, but there is some of them closed; there was about 40 there, but they closed half of them.
Q. Seventeen places returned in the First precinct? A. Yes; 17 places.
Q. You have got the names of the backers of each policy place? A. Very nearly all of them.
Q. I find the names here of the backers in the First precinct are Gammon, Murray, De Witt, Shipsey, Brown, Parker, were the names of the backers? A. Yes, sir ”

“ They shall give at least twenty days' notice of the time when, and the place in the precinct where they will attend to register applicants for registration, by bills posted at five or more public places in each election precinct, and by advertisement once a week for three successive weeks in a newspaper, if there be one published in the county. Upon failure to give such notice, or to attend any appointment made by them in any precinct, they shall, after like notice, fill new appointments therein ”

“ Voters removing from one election precinct to an another in the same county may appear before the assessor at any time previous to the delivery of the registry list to the clerk of the county court, and have their names erased therefrom, and they may thereupon have their names registered in the precinct to which they may remove. ”

“ Promptly the wardman of the precinct came to her and asked her “whether she did not know the law of the precinct.” “You know very well,” he said, “that you cannot move in here until you see the Captain.” And then this estimable officer did all he could to convince her that it was idle trying to run a decent boarding-house, and she had much better open the house in the regular way. The initiation fee would be £400, £200 down and the rest to stand over until business was good. There was to be a further payment of protection money, amounting to £240 a year. ”

“ Q. Is it a recognized system and rule among the policy dealers in this city to go to the police and arrange for the paying of the police before it can be opened? A. Certainly.
Q. Is there a specific sum agreed upon for each place? A. Well, I suppose some districts, they may pay more; now up in the Twenty-first precinct, Captain Marten's precinct, there is a middle-man there named Richard Dore. and when this Parkhurst crusade was around last winter, if you remember, which they closed up so many places, or in the spring or winter, the captain told him to close: he could not open ”

“ Every woman born in the country must once in her life go and sit down in the precinct of Venus, and there consort with a stranger. Many of the wealthier sort, who are too proud to mix with the others, drive in covered carriages to the precinct, followed by a goodly train of attendants, and there take their station. ”

“ In other words, precincts are the organizations of the neighborhood principle in civil government. They might be compared with the 'States' of the American Union by calling them very small and reformed 'states.' The precinct is the fourth fundamental element or 'personality' of society as determined in our analytics." The precinct is distinguished from the corporation, and is the smallest political group, but in Mr. Wright's scheme it is endowed with many of the most important functions of government.
The fifth unit is the nation, which is political on the larger scale ”

“ Each county in the State with a population of 18,000 or more but less than 50,000, according to the most recent federal census, from time to time, for the convenience of the people, shall be divided into not less than two and not more than eight precincts. Each county in the State with a population of less than 18,000, according to the most recent federal census, from time to time, for the convenience of the people, shall be designated as a single precinct or, if the Commissioners Court determines that the county needs more than one precinct, shall be divided into not more than four precincts. ”

“ In each precinct not lying within, or partly within, any city or incorporated town of more than fifteen hundred inhabitants, there shall be elected by the qualified electors of such precinct not exceeding two Justices of the Peace, and one Constable. ”

“ The Superintendent’s office is connected by telegraph with every precinct in the city. By means of this wonderful invention, the Superintendent can communicate instantly with any point in the city. The news of a robbery or burglary is flashed all over New York and the adjoining country before a man has fairly secured his plunder. If a child is lost, all the precincts are furnished immediately with an accurate description of it, and the whole force is on the lookout for the little wanderer, and in a marvellously quick time it is restored to its mother’s arms. ”

“ Samuel Eddy, Levi Eddy, Peter Jenison, Ruth Stone, Jesse Stone, Isaac Pratt, Abraham Fitts, Alexander Nichols, David Gleason, of Oxford; John Crowl, Jr., Andrew Crowl, Jonathan Phillips, John Hart, Thomas Scott, William Yong, Jonathan Stone, of Leicester; be and hereby are, with their Families and Estates, erected into a Precinct, and shall enjoy all the powers and privileges which other Precincts in this Province by Law enjoy ”

“ A. Captain O'Connor's precinct; there has been lots of them closed since the Lexow committee commenced to sit the last time.
Q. Eighteen places in Captain O'Connor's precinct? A. That is about right.
Q. And the backers there are given as Adams and Shipsey; they are the two principal backers in that precinct? A. Yes, sir.
Q. I find in the Fourth precinct, Captain Slevin, there are 23? A. That is a good neighborhood; Slevin is a very good man for the policy business.
Q. He is a good man for the policy business? A. Yes; one of the best. ”

“ The roads are under the government of the county courts, subject to be controlled by the general court. They order new roads to be opened wherever they think them necessary. The inhabitants of the county are by them laid off into precincts, to each of which they allot a convenient portion of the public roads to be kept in repair. ”

“ The city was made a county, and thus had its court, its sheriff and coroner, and its high constable. Other officers were the chamberlain or treasurer, seven inferior constables, a sergeant-at-arms, and a clerk of the market, who inspected weights and measures, and punished delinquencies in the use of them. The principal judge was the recorder, who, as we have just seen, was one of the corporation. The aldermen, assistants, and constables were elected annually by the people; but the mayor and sheriff were appointed by the governor. ”

“ Mayors and Sheriffs.—Can you or any of your readers inform me which ought to be considered the principal officer, or which is the most important, and which ought to have precedence of the other, the mayor of a town or borough, or the sheriff of a town or borough? and is the mayor merely the representative of the town, and the sheriff of the Queen; and if so, ought not the representative of majesty to be considered more honourable than the representative of merely a borough; and can a sheriff of a borough claim to have a grant of arms, if he has not any previous? ”

“ A constable is appointed to keep the peace, to watch the streets, and to forward the execution of the laws; the town-clerk records all the town votes, orders, grants, births, deaths, and marriages; the treasurer keeps the funds; the overseer of the poor performs the difficult task of superintending the action of the poor-laws; committee-men are appointed to attend to the schools and to public instruction; and the road-surveyors, who take care of the greater and lesser thoroughfares of the township, complete the list of the principal functionaries. ”

“ A city of the second class must elect a mayor and twelve councilmen, and its mayor must appoint a police judge, an attorney, a street commissioner and a chief of police. A city of the third class must elect a mayor, seven councilmen, a treasurer, a health officer, a clerk and an attorney, and its mayor must apoint a marshal, a police justice and as many policemen as the council provides for. An incorporated town must elect a mayor, five councilmen and a treasurer, and its mayor must appoint a marshal and a clerk. ”

“ In all the municipal corporations dealt with by the act, the town council was to consist of a mayor, aldermen and councillors, and the councils were given like powers, being divided into those with and those without a commission of the peace. The minutes were to be open to the inspection of any burgess, and an audit of accounts was required. The exclusive rights of retail trading, which in some towns were restricted to freemen of the borough, were abolished. The system of police, which in some places was still medieval in character, was placed under the control of the council. ”

“ When a borough is a county of itself the council appoint a sheriff on the 9th of November in every year. And where the borough has a separate court of quarter sessions the council appoint a fit and proper person, not an alderman or councillor, to be the borough coroner, who holds office during Sheriff, coroner.good behaviour. If the borough has a civil court the recorder, if there is one, is judge of it. If there is no recorder, the judge of the court is an officer of the borough appointed under the charter. ”

“ Non-administrative Arrangements.—The Local Government Act of 1888 dealt with the metropolis for non-administrative purposes as it did for administrative, that is to say, as a separate county. The arrangements of quarter-sessions, justices, coroners, sheriffs, &c., were thus brought into line with other counties, except in so far as the ordinary organization is modified by the existence of the central criminal court, the metropolitan police, police courts and magistrates, and a paid chairman of quarter-sessions. ”

“ When the clock in the church-tower struck seven, the watchmen on the bastions struck the big drum three times, whereupon the felon's bell in the tower of the townhall began to toll—a sad, heartrending sound. Then the gates of the courtyard were thrown open, and out came the procession in the usual order, the headsman first on horseback, then the convict, and last of all the members of the town council, the sheriff, the superrector, the conrector, the syndic, and the civic warden. ”

“ The sheriff of every county, having received his writ, ought, forthwith, to send his precepts and summons to the mayors, bailiffs, and head officers of every city, town corporate, borough, and such places as have been accustomed to send burgesses within his county, that they do choose and elect among themselves two citizens for every city, and two burgesses for every borough, according to their old custom and usage. ”

“ There is some confusion in administration and accounts, however, and it is sometimes difficult to determine the exact situation. The Federal District is represented in Congress by 2 senators and 10 deputies, and is credited with the rights and privileges of citizenship. On the other hand, the city is a garrison town and a district under the direct administration of the national executive, who appoints its chief executive, controls its police force, and exercises part control over its streets, squares and water front. ”

“ The recorder made a speech to the livery-men, 'apprising them of the custom and manner of choosing a lord mayor; which, he observed, was for the Common Hall to nominate two of the aldermen who had served sheriffs, to the Court of Aldermen, who had then a right to elect either of them into that great office, and which ever that the court so fixed on, the Common Hall was bound to accept.' When he had ended, the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen retired into the Council Chamber, and left us to preside at the election, attended by the Common Sergeant and other officers. ”

“ CHOOSING COMMON CONSTABLES. For the Table Book.
It is annually the custom to hold a meeting, duly summoned, on Startley Common, Wilts, for the choice of new constables for the hundreds of the county. Lots are cast for those who are to serve for the ensuing year; and afterwards the parties present adjourn to a house for refreshment, which costs each individual about seventeen shillings. This may almost be regarded as an equivalent for serving the office—the lots mostly fall on the absentees. ”