Civil Government in the United States Considered with Some Reference to Its OriginsFiske, John
History
Civil Government in the United States Considered with Some Reference to Its Origins
Fiske, John
United States -- Politics and government
4. Speak of the degree of efficiency in county government.
5. Why is direct government impossible in a city?
6. What difficulties in direct government were experienced in
Boston in 1820 and many years preceding?
7. What remedy for these difficulties was adopted?
8. Show how the word "town" is used to indicate
a. The land of a township.
b. A somewhat large collection of streets, houses, and families.
c. And even, in some instances, a city.
9. What is the town commonly understood to be in American
usage?
10. What is the difference in the United States between a town
and a city?
11. What is the difference in England between a town and a
city?
12. Distinguish between citizens and burgesses in England.
Section 2. _Origin of English Boroughs and Cities_.
[Sidenote: "Chesters."]
[Sidenote: Coalescence of towns to fortified boroughs.]
What, then, was the origin of the English borough or city? In the days
when Roman legions occupied for a long time certain military stations in
Britain, their camps were apt to become centres of trade and thus to
grow into cities. Such places were generally known as _casters_ or
_chesters_, from the Latin _castra_, "camp," and there are many of them
on the map of England to-day. But these were exceptional cases. As a
rule the origin of the borough was as purely English as its name. We
have seen that the town was originally the dwelling-place of a
stationary clan, surrounded by palisades or by a dense quickset hedge.
Now where such small enclosed places were thinly scattered about they
developed simply into villages. But where, through the development of
trade or any other cause, a good many of them grew up close together
within a narrow compass, they gradually coalesced into a kind of
compound town; and with the greater population and greater wealth, there
was naturally more elaborate and permanent fortification than that of
the palisaded village. There were massive walls and frowning turrets,
and the place came to be called a fortress or "borough." The borough,
then, was simply several townships packed tightly together; a hundred
smaller in extent and thicker in population than other hundreds.[4]
[Footnote 4: Freeman, _Norman Conquest_, vol. v. p. 466. For a
description of the _hundred_, see above, pp. 75-80.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account