After the English had been converted to Christianity local churches were gradually set up all over the country, and districts called parishes were assigned for the ministrations of the priests. Now a parish generally coincided in area with a township, or sometimes with a group of two or three townships. In the old heathen times each town seems to have had its sacred place or shrine consecrated to some local deity, and it was a favourite policy with the Roman missionary priests to purify the old shrine and turn it into a church. In this way the township at the same time naturally became the parish. Township, parish. As we find it in later times, both before and since the founding of English colonies in North America, the township in England is likely to be both a manor and a parish. For some purposes manor, and it is the one, for some purposes it is the other. The townsfolk may be regarded as a group of tenants of the lord's manor, or as a group of parishioners of the local church. In the latter aspect the parish retained much of the self-government of the ancient town. The business with which the lord was entitled to meddle was strictly limited, and all other business was transacted in the "vestry-meeting," which was practically the old town-meeting The vestryunder a new name. In the course of the meeting. thirteenth century we find that the parish had acquired the right of taxing itself for church purposes. Money needed for the church was supplied in the form of "church-rates" voted by the ratepayers themselves in the vestry-meeting, so called because it was originally held in a room of the church in which vestments were kept. The officers of the parish were the constable, the Parish officers. dens parish and vestry clerks,1 the beadle, the "waywar or surveyors of highways, the "haywards or fence-viewers, the " common drivers," the collectors of taxes, and at the beginning of the seventeenth century overseers of the poor were added. There were also churchwardens, usually two for each parish. Their duties were primarily to take care of the church property, assess the rates, and call the vestry-meetings. They also acted as overseers of the poor, and thus in several ways remind one of the selectmen of New England. The parish officers were all elected by the ratepayers assembled in vestrymeeting, except the common driver and hayward, who were elected by the same ratepayers assembled in court leet. Besides electing parish officers and granting the rates, the vestry-meeting could enact by-laws; and all ratepayers had an equal voice in its deliberations. During the last two centuries the constitution of the English parish has undergone some modifications which need not here concern us. The Puritans who settled in New England had grown up under such The transi- England to parish government as is here described, and they were used to hearing the parish called, on some occasions and for some purposes, a land. township. If we remember now that the earliest New England towns were founded by church congregations, led by their pastors, we can see how 1 Of these two officers the vestry clerk is the counterpart of the New England town-clerk. 2 Originally a messenger or crier, the beadle came to assume some of the functions of the tithing-man or petty constable, such as keeping order in church, punishing petty offenders, waiting on the clergyman, etc. In New England towns there were formerly officers called tithing-men, who kept order in church, arrested tipplers, loafers, and Sabbath-breakers, etc. town government in New England originated. It was simply the English parish government brought into a new country and adapted to the new situation. Part of this new situation consisted in the fact that the lords of the manor were left behind. There was no longer any occasion to distinguish between the township as a manor and the township as a parish; and so, as the three names had all lived on together, side by side, in England, it was now the oldest and most gen- . erally descriptive name, "township," that survived, and has come into use throughout a great part of the United States. The townsfolk went on making bylaws, voting supplies of public money, and electing their magistrates in America, after the fashion with which they had for ages been familiar in England. Some of their offices and customs were of hoary antiquity. If age gives respectability, the office of constable may vie with that of king; and if the annual town-meeting is usually held in the month of March, it is because in days of old, long before Magna Charta was thought of, the rules and regulations for the village husbandry were discussed and adopted in time for the spring planting. To complete our sketch of the origin of the New England town, one point should here be briefly mentioned in anticipation of what will have to be said hereafter; but it is a point of so much importance that we need not mind a little repetition in stating it. We have seen what a great part taxation plays in the business of government, and we shall presently have to treat of county, state, and federal Building up governments, all of them wider in their states. sphere than the town government. In the course of history, as nations have gradually been built up, these wider governments have been apt to absorb or sup plant and crush the narrower governments, such as the parish or township; and this process has too often been destructive to political freedom. Such a result is, of course, disastrous to everybody; and if it were unavoidable, it would be better that great national governments need never be formed. But it is not unavoidable. There is one way of escaping it, and that is to give the little government of the town some real share in making up the great government of the state. That is not an easy thing to do, as is shown by the fact that most peoples have failed in the attempt. The people who speak the English language have been the most successful, and the device by which they have overcome the difficulty is REPRESENTATION. The town sends to the wider government a delegation of persons who can represent the town and its people. They can speak for the town, and have a voice in the framing of laws and imposition of taxes by the wider government. Representation. Shire-motes. In English townships there has been from time immemorial a system of representation. Long before Alfred's time there were "shire-motes," or what were afterwards called county meetings, and to these each town sent its reeve and “four discreet men" as representatives. Thus to a certain extent the wishes of the townsfolk could be brought to bear upon county affairs. By and by this method was applied on a much wider scale. It was applied to the whole kingdom, so that the people of all its towns and parishes succeeded in securing a representation of their interests in an elective national council or House of Commons. This great work was accomplished in Earl Simon's the thirteenth century by Simon de MontParliament. fort, Earl of Leicester, and was completed by Edward I. Simon's parliament, the first in which the Commons were fully represented, was assembled in 1265; and the date of Edward's parliament, which has been called the Model Parliament, was 1295. These dates have as much interest for Americans as for Englishmen, because they mark the first definite establishment of that grand system of representative government which we are still carrying on at our various state capitals and at Washington. For its humble beginnings we have to look back to the "reeve and four" sent by the ancient townships to the county meetings. Township as resentation. The English township or parish was thus at an early period the "unit of representation" in the government of the county. It was also a district for the assessment and collection of the national taxes; in each parish the assessment was made by unit of repa board of assessors chosen by popular vote. These essential points reappear in the early history of New England. The township was not only a selfgoverning body, but it was the "unit of representation" in the colonial legislature, or "General Court; " and the assessment of taxes, whether for town purposes or for state purposes, was made by assessors elected by the townsfolk. In its beginnings and fundamentals our political liberty did not originate upon American soil, but was brought hither by our forefathers the first settlers. They brought their political institutions with them as naturally as they brought their language and their social customs. Observe now that the township is to be regarded in two lights. It must be considered not only in itself, but as part of a greater whole. We began by describing it as a self-governing body, but in order to complete our sketch we were obliged to speak of it as a body which has a share in the government of the |