We have now obtained a clear outline view of the township and county in themselves and in their relation to one another, with an occasional glimpse of their relation to the state; in so far, at least, as such a view can be gained from a reference to the history of England and of Massachusetts. We must next trace the development of local government in other parts of the United States; and in doing so we can advance at somewhat quicker pace, not because our subject becomes in any wise less important or less interesting, but because we have already marked out the ground and said things of general application which will not need to be said over again. QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. Give an account of the modern county in Massachusetts under the following heads:-- 1. The county a corporation. 2. The county commissioners and their duties. 3. The county treasurer and his duties. 4. The courts held in a county. 5. The shire town and the court-house. 6. The register of deeds and his duties. 7. Justices of the peace and trial justices. 8. The sheriff and his duties. 9. The force at the sheriff's disposal to suppress disorder. Section 3. _The Old Virginia County._ By common consent of historians, the two most distinctive and most characteristic lines of development which English forms of government have followed, in propagating themselves throughout the United States, are the two lines that have led through New England on the one hand and through Virginia on the other. We have seen what shape local government assumed in New England; let us now observe what shape it assumed in the Old Dominion. [Sidenote: Virginia sparsely settled.] The first point to be noticed in the early settlement of Virginia is that people did not live so near together as in New England. This was because tobacco, cultivated on large estates, was a source of wealth. Tobacco drew settlers to Virginia as in later days gold drew settlers to California and sparsely Australia. They came not in organized groups or congregations, but as a multitude of individuals. Land was granted to individuals, and sometimes these grants were of enormous extent. John Bolling, who died in 1757, left an estate of 40,000 acres, and this is not mentioned as an extraordinary amount of land for one man to own.[7] From an early period it was customary to keep these great estates together by entailing them, and this continued until entails were abolished in 1776 through the influence of Thomas Jefferson. [Footnote 7: Edward Channing, "Town and County Government," in _Johns Hopkins University Studies_, vol. ii. p. 467.]