called Barrington, "town of the Beorings," or Cressingham, "home of the Cressings." Town names of this sort, with which the map of England is thickly studded, point us back to a time when the town was supposed to be the stationary home of a clan.

The Old English town had its tungemot, or town-meeting, in which "by-laws" were made and other important business transacted. The principal officers were the "reeve" The Old or head-man, the "beadle" or mes- English township senger, and the "tithing-man or petty constable. These officers seem at first to have been elected by the people, but after a while, as great lordships grew up, usurping jurisdiction over the land, the lord's steward and bailiff came to supersede the reeve and beadle. After the Norman Conquest the townships, thus brought under the sway of great lords, came to be generally known by the French name of manors or "dwelling places." Much might be said about this change, but here it is enough for us to bear in mind that a manor was essentially a township in which the chief executive officers were directly responsible to The manor the lord rather than to the people.

It would be wrong, however, to suppose that the manors entirely lost their self-government. Even the ancient town-meeting survived in them, in a fragmentary way, in several interest

ing assemblies, of which the most interesting were the court leet, for the election of certain officers and the trial of petty offences, and the court baron, which was much like a townmeeting.

Still more of the old self-government would doubtless have survived in the institutions of the manor if it had not been provided

The parish for in another way. The parish was older than the manor. 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, manor, and

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 parparish ish. For some purposes 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 practi- The vestrycally the old town-meeting under a meeting new name. In the course of the 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 and vestry clerks,' the beadle,2 the waywardens" or surveyors of high- Parish offiways, the "haywards" or fence-view- cers ers, the "common drivers," the collectors of taxes, and at the beginning of the seventeenth

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 Sabbathbreakers, etc.

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 vestry-meeting, 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.

The transition from

England to New England

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 parish government as is here described, and they were used to hearing the parish called, on some occasions and for some purposes, a township. If we remember now that the earliest New England towns were founded by church congregations, led by their pastors, we can see how 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 generally descriptive name, "township," that survived, and has come into use throughout a great part of the United States. The townsfolk went on making by-laws, 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 pre