20. The moderator of any town meeting may, in open meeting, administer the oaths of office to any town officers chosen thereat. 21. For provisions in relation to meetings for elections, see title "Elections." TOWN OFFICERS, AND THEIR ELECTION. 1. What town officers to be chosen. 2. What town officers to be sworn. 3. What town officers to be chosen by written ballots. 4. "Written" includes printing, &c. 5. Penalty for neglecting to choose selectmen or asessors. 6. In case of such neglect, commissioners may appoint assessors. 7. Com missioners may appoint assessors, when assessors and selectmen chosen by any town do not serve. 8. Officers to be appointed by select men. 9. Town clerks to give notice to perBons elected that they may be sworn. 10. Penalty for not taking the oath of office. 11. Persons elected to any town of fice in which oath is not required, to be summoned to appear before town clerk and declare acceptance. Penalty for neglect. 12. Any town office to be deemed vacant if person elected does not file certificate of oath or declaration of acceptance within seven days. 13. Town offices vacated by removal from town. 14. Vacancies may be filled by a new choice. 15. No person obliged to serve two years successively in the same office. 16. Town officers embezzling town property guilty of larceny. 1. At the annual meeting, every town shall choose from among the inhabitants, the following town officers, who shall serve during the year, and until others shall be chosen and qualified in their stead, that is to say: A town clerk, who, if present, shall be sworn to the faithful discharge of his duty, either by the moderator of the meeting, or by any justice of the peace. Three, five, seven or nine selectmen : Three or more assessors, and if the town shall deem it expedient, three or more assistant assessors: Three or more overseers of the poor: A town treasurer: A school committee of three, five or seven persons: Constables, who shall also be collectors of taxes, unless other persons shall be specially chosen collectors: Measurers of wood and bark, unless the town shall authorize the selectmen to appoint them: Sealers of leather, and all other usual town officers. R. S. c. 15, § 33. 2. All the town officers, designated by name in the preceding section, except the overseers of the poor, tythingmen and the school committee, shall be sworn to the faithful discharge of the duties of their respective offices. ль. 3. The election of town clerks, selectmen, assessors, school committees and town treasurers, and also of the moderator of the meetings held for the choice of town officers, shall be by written ballots; and the election of all other town officers shall be in such mode as the meeting shall determine. R. S. c. 15, § 34. The election of all be by written ballots. constables of towns, shall hereafter Stat. 1851, c. 94, § 3. 4. The word "written," includes printing, engraving, lithographing, or any other mode of representing words and letters. R. S. c. 2, § 6. 5. Every town which shall neglect to make choice of selectmen or assessors, shall forfeit a sum not exceeding five hundred nor less than one hundred dollars, as the county commissioners of the county, in which such town is, shall order. R. S. c. 15, § 35. 6. In case of such neglect to choose selectmen or assessors, the county commissioners may appoint three or more assessors for such town. Ib. § 37. 7. Whenever neither the assessors nor the selectmen, chosen by any town, shall accept the trust, or, having accepted it, shall not perform the duties thereof, the county commissioners may appoint three or more suitable persons, within the county, to be assessors of taxes, for such town; and the assessors so appointed, shall have the like powers, and be subject to the like duties, and receive the like compensation, as assessors chosen by the town. Ib. § 36. 8. The selectmen of each town shall, in the month of March or April, annually, appoint the following town officers, unless the inhabitants themselves, at their annual meeting, shall choose them, namely: One sealer of weights and measures; and any other number, which the inhabitants shall, at their annual meeting, vote to have appointed. As many measurers of fire-wood and bark, (whose fees shall be also established by the selectmen,) as the inhabitants shall at their annual meeting determine: The selectmen of every town, which has town scales, for the weighing of hay, shall appoint one or more persons to have the superintendence of the hay scales belonging to their town. Ib. 38. 9. After the election or appointment of any town officers, who are required to take an oath of office, the town clerk shall forthwith make out a list, containing the names of all such officers, as shall not have been sworn by the moderator, and a designation of the offices to which they are chosen, and deliver the same, with his warrant, to a constable, requiring him, within three days, to summon each of the officers, so chosen, to appear and take the oath of office, before the town clerk, within seven days after such notice; and the constable shall, within seven days, make return of the warrant to the town clerk. lb. 39. 10. If any person so chosen, and summoned, and not exempted by law from holding the office, to which he is elected, shall not, within seven days, take the oath of office, before the town clerk, he shall, unless the office to which he is chosen shall be that of constable, or some other for which a different penalty is provided, forfeit the sum of five dollars to the use of the town; provided, always, that every such person, who shall take the oath of office, before a justice of the peace, and file a certificate thereof, under the hand of such justice, with the town clerk, within the said space of seven days, shall be exempted from said penalty. Ib. 40. 11. All persons elected, or appointed to any town office, in which an oath of office is not required shall be summoned in the manner provided in the thirty-ninth section of the fifteenth chapter of the Revised Statutes, in the case of officers, who are required to take an oath, and shall be required to appear before the town clerk, and declare their acceptance or refusal of such office, or to file a declaration in writing thereof, with the town clerk, within seven days after such notice, and the town clerk shall make a record of such acceptances and refusals and any persons so elected or appointed and summoned and not exempted by law from holding the office to which he is elected, who shall neglect to declare his acceptance as aforesaid, shall forfeit the sum of five dollars to the use of the town. Stat. 1853, c. 283. 12. Whenever any person elected and appointed to any town office, and duly summoned shall in case an oath of office is required, neglect to take such oath before the town clerk, and to file with the town clerk a certificate of his having taken such oath before a justice of the peace within seven days after notice as aforesaid, or in case such oath is not required, shall neglect to declare his acceptance as aforesaid within seven days after such notice, or shall within seven days after such notice declare his refusal of such office, such office shall be deemed thereby to be vacated and the town may fill such vacancy by a new choice at any other legal meeting. 1853, c. 283, § 2. 13. Every person, removing from a town in which he held a town office, shall be deemed thereby to have vacated such office. Ib. 41. 14. Whenever there shall be a vacancy in any town office, by reason of non-acceptance, death, removal, insanity or other disability of any person chosen to office, the town may fill such vacancy, by a new choice at any other legal meeting. Ib. 42. 15. No person shall be obliged to serve in the same office two years successively. Ib. 43. 16. If any town, city, or county officer in this commonwealth shall embezzle or fraudulently convert to his own use, or shall fraudulently take or secrete, with intent to convert to his own use any money, note, bill, obligation or security, or any other effects, or property belonging to, or in possession of said town, city, or county, he shall be deemed by so doing to have committed the crime of larceny, and shall upon conviction thereof be punished in the same manner as is now provided by the one hundred and twenty-sixth chapter of the Revised Statutes, in cases of embezzlement by bank officers. 1855, c. 487. 1. Assessors are to be chosen by written ballot, and to be sworn. R. S. C. 15, § 33, 34. 2. The assessors' oath of office, shall be in substance as follows: You, being chosen assessors, or an assessor (as the case may be) for the town of for the year ensuing, do swear, that you will impartially, according to your best skill and judgment, assess and apportion all such tax |