Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1896-01-17
Observation-Disclosures
[1 ~
e! e1DIRECT LEGISLATION.D~ III
[9l i@
Observation-Disclosures

Your request for description of the actu;
workings of the New England town meetin
was duly received, and have considered
more or less since. But actually have no
yet given myself the pleasure of attending on
of those interesting occasions, for the city c
Providence is under a municipal form of GOV
ernment. However, the "town meetin' sti
prevails throughout the state, except in the i'll
corporated cities | understand that Bristol
where the fast boats are built is still under tn
town system, and the meetings there are SAT-
to be the most interesting in the state. Bl,
town meetings are held in the towns adjoinin!
Providence, such as ir Arlington, Cranston
etc, the proceedings of which furnish spicy re
ports for the city newspapers. The way thu
word town is used in New England is quite
confusing to one who is westernbred. In the
West, when we speak of town, meal
something between village and city. But
here, "a town" generally means the entire
district, or, what i'll the West would be called g
township. Every town, or district, has one OF
more villages which generally bears the same
name as the town. This, of course, gives rise
to some confusion, but attempt is made to
distinguish between the village and the district
by adding the word Center after the same. 1t
frequently happens that a town has more than
one village, all bearing the town name, as if
they were children of the same family, These
are distinguished by prefXing to the town
name the direction-East, West, North or
South-which they may be from the center.
Thus we have Greenwich, the town, and East
Greenwich Greenwich Center, the villages.
New England was settled originally by village
communities. The character of the land was
not suitable for large farms or plantations;
hence ,ieach head OLA family had his own small
together in groups, the farmers, shop-keepers
and mechanics forming village community
Thus the town-meeting system of local govern
lnent was well suited to such conditions, for it
was easy for all the members of the settlement
to meet together and talk over their local pub
lie affairs. John Fiske speaks of the New
England towu meeting as ''the most complete
democracy, or government by the people, i'll
the world. 1t is, in principle, the Oldest form
of government in the world 1t is older than
magma charta; older, even, than Athens and
Rome. The very earliest form of civil govern
ment that appeared was that of the family
groups called clans, which, though crude and
dsordery, was, i'll principle, a pure democra
cy." '"rhe New England town meeting, Mr..
Fiske tells us, "was simply the English parish
government brought into a new country and
adapted to a new situation"
This new situation consists, in part, in the
fact that the lords of the manor and the bisl-
ops of the diocese had been left behind; SO
there was no longer any occasion to distinguish
between the township as as manor and the
township as parish For that reason it was
the oldest of the three names and the one most
generally descriptive, namely "township,"
that survived. Town, or "tun," originally
meant the protecting wall or barricade built
around the little community. Then the space
so enclosed came to be called ''the town.; but
now we are in the habit of speaking of the
group OF thick-clustered houses as town,
The town meeting is, to limited extent, a
legislative body, for it can make regulations
concerning the local affairs. These regulations
are called bylaws, which Mr.. Fiske tells us is