The selectmen are
thus the principal town-magistrates; and through the annual election
their responsibility to the town is maintained at the maximum. Yet in
many New England towns re-election of the same persons year after year
has very commonly prevailed. I know of an instance where the office of
town-clerk was filled by three members of one family during one hundred
and fourteen consecutive years.
Besides choosing executive officers, the town-meeting has the power of
enacting by-laws, of making appropriations of money for town-purposes,
and of providing for miscellaneous emergencies by what might be termed
special legislation. Besides the annual meeting held in the spring for
transacting all this local business, the selectmen are required to call
a meeting in the autumn of each year for the election of state and
county officers, each second year for the election of representatives to
the federal Congress, and each fourth year for the election of the
President of the United States.
It only remains to add that, as an assembly of the whole people becomes
impracticable in a large community, so when the population of a township
has grown to ten or twelve thousand, the town-meeting is discontinued,
the town is incorporated as a city, and its affairs are managed by a
mayor, a board of aldermen, and a common council, according to the
system adopted in London in the reign of Edward I.
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