Townsman

“ The townsman sees and takes part in the wonderful achievements of industrial science without any full understanding of its methods or of the relative importance and the interaction of the forces engaged. ”

“ The townsman, on his side, the artisan or labourer or even the rentier of the great cities, is naturally anxious to obtain the necessaries of life which he gets from the rural districts at as low a rate as he may be able to buy them having regard to his wages or his income. ”

“ The horizon of the townsman becomes fictitiously narrowed; he needs a wider field for observation—greater space for movement—more leisure for reflection. He learns to attach too much importance by far to the trappings of life ”

“ The townsman looks eagerly, expresses a great deal, expresses it well, but misses the spirit from want of a background to his picture. One must know the whole round of the year in the country to catch the spirit of any season and perceive whence it comes and whither it goes. ”

“ The townsman, again, who moves among the multitude and every hour is reminded of that multitude pressing, as all5 fluids do, “equally in all directions,” hears, and sometimes he knows, that the clergy in the towns have immense claims upon their time and are always on the move in the streets and courts. ”

“ 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. ”

“ From the outset the government of the township was vested in the TOWN-MEETING,--an institution which in its present form is said to be peculiar to New England, but which, as we shall see, has close analogies with local self-governing bodies in other ages and countries. Once in each year--usually in the month of March--a meeting is held, at which every adult male residing within the limits of the township is expected to be present, and is at liberty to address the meeting or to vote upon any question that may come up. ”

“ It is patterned upon and no doubt grew out of the less perfect borough systems of Europe, and those inchoate communes of our Saxon forefathers which were denominated 'Hundreds.' It is the slow growth of centuries of political experience; the ripe fruit of ages of liberty-seeking thought.
"The township is the shield and nursery of individual freedom of thought and action. The young citizen who has never dreamed of a political career becomes interested in some local question affecting his individual interests. ”

“ The number of these are yearly about two hundred, who at sun-setting meet on the Row, the most open part of the town, where the Mayor’s serjeant-at-mace gives them an oath, the tenor wherof followeth in these words: ‘You shall well and truly keep this town till to-morrow at the sun-rising; you shall come into no house without license or cause reasonable. Of all manner of casualties, of fire, of crying of children, you shall due warning make to the parties, as the case shall require. ”

“ To be a supervisor of the roads, [1] to be township constable and collector of the taxes, to audit the township accounts, to be a member of the school board, to be a justice of the peace, is an inclination—it may be a desire—entertained by many citizens; and if the ambition may seem to be a narrow one, its modesty does not make it unworthy or discreditable. But these men alone, active in the politics of townships, form a surprising array. ”

“ Having advanced so far as a village council, and arrived at the stage of managing their own affairs, having, in fact, emerged from pupilage, next comes a question for the council. We now govern our village ourselves; why should we not possess our village? Why should we not live in our own houses? Why should we not have a little share in the land, as much, at least, as we can pay for? At this moment the village, let us say, consists of a hundred cottages, and perhaps there are another hundred scattered about the parish. ”

“ Summary.—In the course of centuries the government of most boroughs got into the hands of few people. This was altered early in the nineteenth century. Borough towns now choose a certain number of members, and the councils elect a mayor. The mayor is a magistrate; in the large towns of England trained lawyers are appointed magistrates to act in the police courts.
In country places much of the power of the manor court got into the hands of the vestry. The vestry made the rates required, and chose churchwardens, overseers, surveyors of highways, every year. ”

“ I find that into my idea of the village has entered more of the elm than of the human being. They are worth many a political borough. They constitute a borough. The poor human representative of his party sent out from beneath their shade will not suggest a tithe of the dignity, the true nobleness and comprehensiveness of view, the sturdiness and independence, and serene beneficence that they do. They look from township to township. . . . They battle with the tempests of a century. ”

“ Again, a town is any collection of houses larger than a village; or any number of houses to which belongs a regular market, and which is not a city. (Johnson, Webster, Ogilvie.) The same authorities define a village as a small collection of houses in the country, less than a town. According to this distinction, the law, in giving power to 'any village, city, county, or township' to make donations and issue bonds to the railroad company, confers the power upon bodies of higher and lower degrees of municipal organization than towns, and leaves them out. ”

“ If the chief centre of interest had once lain in the offices of the royal palace it might now be seen rather in the new Town Hall which was being built in almost every borough in England, or in the office where the mayor’s clerk was busied in making his copies of Magna Charta or extracts of Domesday, or in translating from the old French the customs and ordinances of the town, or in hunting up the rolls of the itinerant judges ”

“ A bridge is out of repair; a roadmaster has failed to perform his duty; a constable has been remiss in his office; a justice of the peace has failed to hold the scales with even balance between rich and poor; a school has not been properly cared for; the funds of the township have been squandered; or the assumption of a liability is proposed by the township trustees, the policy of which he doubts. He has the remedy in his own hands. He goes to the township meeting, or he appears at the town-house upon election day, and appeals to his own neighbors—those having like interests with himself. ”

“ The streets, wards, and Locations in, at, or adjoining the villages or standdorpen pointed out and surveyed as places of residence and business for the said persons, which do not form part of such villages or standdorpen, and which do not fall under the local authorities or board of management, shall, as from now, form part of such villages or standdorpen, and are placed under such authority or board, be it the local Landdrost, Mining Commissioner, Responsible Clerk, or any Town Council, or Town Board. ”

“ We began to think that we might tumble into a village before we were aware of it, as into an ant-lion’s hole, and be drawn into the sand irrecoverably. The most conspicuous objects on the land were a distant windmill, or a meeting-house standing alone, for only they could afford to occupy an exposed place. A great part of the township, however, is a barren, heath-like plain, and perhaps one third of it lies in common, though the property of individuals. ”

“ In present-day New England even a small village has its town house, containing a large hall, which serves for town meetings and for community assemblies for various social purposes. In the town meeting the administrative officers, called selectmen, are chosen annually, and minor officers, including clerk, treasurer, constables, and school committee; there the community taxes itself for the salaries of its officials, for the support of the town poor, for the maintenance of highways, and for such modern improvements as street lights and a public library. ”

“ The little colony upon the Mayflower was a township, and every man of its passengers carried the seed of the ideal township system in his heart."
"Admitted, admitted, Mr. Le Moyne," said the other, smiling at his earnestness. "But how shall we repeat the experiment? Would you import men into every township of the South, in order that they might carry the seeds of civil liberty with them, and build up the township system there?" ”

“ 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. ”

“ No one of their lords shall have the wardship or the disposal of their sons or daughters on account of their lands out of the town, but only the wardship of their tenements which belong to their own fee, until they become of age. There shall be no recognition [acknowledgment that something done by another person in one's name had one's authority] in the town. No one shall take tyne [wooden barrel with a certain quantity of ale, payable by the townsmen to the constable for the use of the castle] unless for the use of the lord Earl, and that according to the custom of the town. ”

“ Let us make our own selections—or, rather, help our mayor to make hers—and show this town what can be done with an honest and sane council, every man of whom has at heart the framing of a model municipality and the development of an ideal city. ”

“ A borough was run by a mayor elected usually for life. By being members of a guild, merchant-traders and craftsmen acquired the legal status of burgesses and had the freedom of the borough. Each guild occupied a certain ward of the town headed by an alderman. The town aldermen made up the town council, which advised the mayor. ”

“ Not likely! Why, others of the citizens are intent on hospitality as well, and any of the four homes of the place may be ours for the present, if we will.
But the Mayor is not going to be choused out of his guests; don't you believe it! What is he Mayor and boss of the township for, he would like to know, if not to look after new-chums? Besides, on his own sole responsibility, he has turned the immigrant [Pg 115] barracks into a warehouse for produce, since no immigrants ever seemed to be coming to occupy them. ”

“ Races who have no wants are always poor. When I first came to live here in this township, there were about a hundred and thirty peasant families in it, and some two hundred hearths in the valley. The local authorities were such as might be expected in the prevailing wretchedness of the population. The mayor himself could not write, and the deputy-mayor was a small farmer, who lived beyond the limits of the Commune. ”

“ That is my particular town; and there, as I was going to say, is a jolly alderman, a big, broadchested, [Pg 131] hearty, laughing man he is, and pokes his fingers in your sides when he tells you a good story. Well, he has a fine, large garden, and in the middle of it a fine, large lawn, and in the middle of the lawn is a fine, large oak-tree. Now, the grass of the lawn had become thin, and the alderman told his gardener to dig up his lawn, and sow it with barley for the fowls, and next year they would turf the lawn again. ”

“ The elders of the town, or village, seated at the gate, or beneath the grateful shade of stately trees, and presided over by an English gentleman conversant with their habits and language, and possessed of tact, patience, and good sense, would probably dispense more evenhanded justice than is obtained by all the costly paraphernalia of courts of law founded on a totally different phase of civilization. ”

“ The townspeople were scarcely more than serfs, in spite of the fact that they lived within a wall and engaged in industry instead of farming. They had to pay irritating dues to their lord, just as if they had still formed a farming community. The emancipation of the townsmen from their lords and the establishment of a suitable form of government for their town were necessary preliminaries to the free development of town life.
Increase of trade promotes the growth of the towns. ”

“ The town-crier is a venerable, white-bearded [222] individual whose family have held the post for many generations. It is his duty to announce any new regulations in the town, and to summon the populace to meetings or to work. ”

“ And among all the town officers, chosen at the annual meeting, where is he that sustains, for a single year, the burden of such manifold duties as are imposed in perpetuity, upon the Town Pump?
The title of town treasurer is rightfully mine, as guardian of the best treasure the town has. The overseers of the poor ought to make me their chairman since I provide bountifully for the pauper, without expense to him that pays taxes. I am at the head of the fire department, and one of the physicians of the board of health. As a keeper of the peace all water drinkers confess me equal to the constable. ”