works. And sometimes it has the oversight of township expenditure.25 The board of county commissioners consists in Michigan and Illinois of the supervisors of all the townships within the county; in Wisconsin and Minnesota the commissioners are directly chosen at a county election. I pass to the mixed or compromise system as it appears in the other group of States, of which Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Iowa may be taken as samples. In these States we find no Town meeting. Their township may have greater or less power, but its members do not come together in a primary assembly; it elects its local officers, and acts only through and by them. In Ohio there are three township trustees with the entire charge of local affairs, a clerk and a treasurer. In Pennsylvania the township is governed by two or three supervisors, elected for three years, one each year, together with an assessor (for valuation purposes), a town clerk, three auditors, and (where the poor are a township charge) two overseers of the poor. The supervisors may lay a rate on the township not exceeding one per cent. on the valuation of the property within its limits for the repair of roads, highways, and bridges, and the overseers of the poor may, with the consent of two justices,26 levy a similar tax for the poor. But as the poor are usually a county charge, and as any ratepayer may work out his road tax in labour, township rates amount to very little. 25 Mr. Bemis says:-"Inasmuch as many of the thousand or more townships of a State lack the political education and conservatism necessary for perfect self-control, since also many through lack of means cannot raise sufficient money for roads, bridges, schools, and the poor, a higher authority is needed with the power of equalizing the valuation of several contiguous towns, of taxing the whole number for the benefit of the poorer, and of exercising a general oversight over township expenses. The importance of this power is not fully appreciated. For lack of similar provision in Massachusetts, there is scarcely any State or county aid or control of schools. Every town is left to its own resources, with poor results [?]. All educators earnestly advocate county and State control of schools, that there may be uniformity of methods, and that the country districts, the nurseries of our great men in the past, may not degenerate. two influences oppose: the fear of centralization on the part of the small towns which need it most, and the dislike of the rich cities to tax themselves for the country districts."-"Local Government in Michigan," ut supra, p. 18. But Justices are elected by the people for five years, and commissioned by the governor of the State. "In Iowa," says Mr. Macy, "the civil township, which is usually six miles square, is a local government for holding elections, repairing roads, testing property, giving relief to the poor, and other business of local interest. Its officers are three trustees, one clerk, a road supervisor for each road district, one assessor, two or more justices of the peace, and two or more constables. The justices and constables are in a sense county officers. Yet they are elected by townships. and if they remove from the township in which they are chosen, they cease to be officers. The trustees are chosen for three years, but their terms of office are so arranged that one is chosen each year. The other officers are chosen for two years. If there is within the limits of the township an incorporated town or city, the law requires that at least one of the justices shall live within the town or city. The voters within the town or city choose a separate assessor. The voters of the city are not allowed to vote for road supervisors nor for the township assessor; they vote for all other township officers. "The trustees of the township have various duties in the administration of the poor-laws. An able-bodied person applying for aid may be required to work upon the streets or highways. If a person who has acquired a legal settlement in the county, and who has no near relatives able to support him, applies to the trustees for aid, it is their duty to look into the case and furnish or refuse relief. If they decide to furnish it, they may do so by sending the person to the county poorhouse, or by giving him what they think needful in food, clothing, medical attendance, or money. If they refuse aid the applicant may go to the county supervisors, and they may order the trustees to furnish aid; or if the supervisors think the trustees are giving aid unwisely they may order them to withhold it. In all cases where aid is furnished directly by the trustees to the applicant they are required to send a statement of the expense incurred to the auditor of the county, who presents the bills to the board of supervisors. All bills for the relief of the poor are paid by the county, and the supervisors if they choose may take the entire business out of the hands of the trustees. But in counties where no poorhouse is provided, and where the supervisors make no provision for the poor, the trustees are required to take entire charge of the business. Yet in any case the county must meet the expenses. The trustees are the health officers of the township. They may require persons to be vaccinated; they may require the removal of filth injurious to health; they may adopt bye-laws for preserving the health of the community and enforce them by fine and imprisonment."27 In most of these States the county overshadows the township. Taking Pennsylvania as an example, we find each county governed by a board of three commissioners, elected 27A Government Text-Book for Iowa Schools, pp. 21-23. for three years, upon a minority vote system, the elector being allowed to vote for two candidates only. Besides these there are officers, also chosen by popular vote for three years, viz. a sheriff, coroner, prothonotary, registrar of wills, recorder of deeds, treasurer, surveyor, three auditors, clerk of the court, district attorney. Some of these officers are paid by fees, except in counties whose population exceeds 50,000, where all are paid by salary. A county with at least 40,000 inhabitants is a judicial district, and elects its judge for a term of ten years. No new county is to contain less than 400 square miles or 20,000 inhabitants.28 The county, besides its judicial business and the management of the prisons incident thereto, besides its duties as respects highways and bridges, has educational and usually also poor-law functions; and it levies its county tax and the State taxes through a collector for each township whom it and not the township appoints. It audits the accounts of township, and has other rights of control over these minor communities exceeding those allowed by Michigan or Illinois.29 I must not omit to remark that. where any local area is not governed by a primary assembly30 of all its citizens, as in those States where there is no Town meeting, and in all States in respect to counties, a method is frequently provided for taking the judgment of the citizens of the local area, be it township or county, by popular vote at the polls upon a specific question, usually the borrowing of money or the levying of a rate beyond the regular amount. This is an extension to local divisions of the so-called "plebiscitary" or referendum method, whose application to State legislation has been discussed in a preceding chapter. It seems 2See Constitution of Pennsylvania of 1873, Arts. xiv., xiii. and v. The average population of a county in Pennsylvania was, in 1880, 64,000. There are sixty-seven. 29See "Local Government in Pennsylvania," in J. H. U. Studies, by E. R. L. Gould, Baltimore, 1883. 30 As the primary meeting is in England dying out in the form of the parish vestry, so the plebiscitary method seems to be coming in to meet the now more democratic conditions of the country. It is recognized in the Free Library Acts, which provide for taking a poll of all the ratepayers within a given local area to determine whether or no a local rate shall be levied to provide a free public library. And see above (Chapter XXXIX.) as to the proposal to submit to popular vote the question of granting licenses for the sale of intoxicating liquors. SRAK UNIVERSIT? OF to work well, for by providing an exceptional method of meeting exceptional cases, it enables the ordinary powers of executive officials, whether in township or county, to be kept within narrow limits. Want of space has compelled me to omit from this sketch many details which might interest European students of local government, nor can I attempt to indicate the relations of the rural areas, townships and counties, to the incorporated villages and cities which lie within their compass, further than by observing that cities, even the smaller ones, are usually separated from the townships, that is to say, the township government is superseded by the city government, while cities of all grades remain members of the counties, bear their share in county taxation, and join in county elections. Often, however, the constitution of a State contains special provisions to meet the case of a city so large as practically to overshadow or absorb the county, as Chicago does the county of Cook, and Cincinnati the county of Hamilton, and sometimes the city is made a county by itself. Of these villages and other minor municipalities there are various forms in different States. Ohio, for instance, divides her municipal corporations into (a) cities, of which there are two classes, the first class containing three grades, the second class four grades; (b) villages, also with two classes, the first of from 3000 to 5000 inhabitants, the second of from 200 to 3000; and (c) hamlets, incorporated places with less than 200 inhabitants. The principles which govern these organizations are generally the same; the details are infinite, and incapable of being summarized here. Of minor incorporated bodies therefore I say no more. But the larger cities furnish a wide and instructive field of inquiry; and to them three chapters must be devoted. 31 31 Ohio Voters' Manual, Appendix K. Ohio contains: Cities-1 first class, first grade, 1 first class, second grade, 1 first class, third grade, 2 second class, first grade, 1 second class, second grade, 9 second class, third grade, 23 second class, fourth grade; Villages-34 first class, 395 second class; Hamlets-32, besides 785 unincorporated places or towns mentioned in Secretary of State's Report for 1881. CHAPTER XLIX OBSERVATIONS ON LOCAL GOVERNMENT IT may serve to clear up a necessarily intricate description if I add here a few general remarks applicable to all, or nearly all, of the various systems of local government that prevail in the several States of the Union. I. Following American authorities, I have treated the New England type or system as a distinct one, and referred the North-western States to the mixed type. But the European reader may perhaps figure the three systems most vividly to his mind if he will divide the Union into three zones- -Northern, Middle, and Southern. In the northern, which, beginning at the confluence of the Yellowstone and Missouri, stretches east to the Bay of Fundy, and includes the States of North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, and the six New England States, he will find a primary assembly, the Town or township meeting, in preponderant activity as the unit of local government. In the middle zone, stretching from California to New Jersey and New York, inclusive, along the fortieth parallel of latitude, he will find the township dividing with the county the interests and energy of the people. In some States of this zone the county is the more important organism and dwarfs the township; in some the township seems to be gaining on the county; but all are alike in this, that you cannot lose sight for a moment of either the smaller or the larger area, and that both areas are governed by elected executive officers. The third zone includes all the southern States; in which the |