has been fairly well preserved.  The county system has had no mean share in keeping alive the spirit of local independence and self-government among our people.  As regards efficiency of administration, it has achieved commendable success, except in the matter of rural highways; and if our roads are worse than those of any other civilized country, that is due not so much to imperfect administrative methods as to other causes,—­such as the sparseness of population, the fierce extremes of sunshine and frost, and the fact that since this huge country began to be reclaimed from the wilderness, the average voter, who has not travelled in Europe, knows no more about good roads than he knows about the temples of Paestum or the pictures of Tintoretto, and therefore does not realize what demands he may reasonably make.

This last consideration applies in some degree, no doubt, to the ill-paved and filthy streets which are the first things to arrest one’s attention in most of our great cities.  It is time for us now to consider briefly our general system of city government, in its origin and in some of its most important features.

[Sidenote:  The Boston town-meeting in 1820.] Representative government in counties is necessitated by the extent of territory covered; in cities it is necessitated by the multitude of people.  When the town comes to have a very large population, it becomes physically impossible to have town-meetings.  No way could be devised by which all the taxpayers of the city of New York could be assembled for discussion.  In 1820 the population of Boston was about 40,000, of whom rather more than 7,000 were voters qualified to attend the town-meetings.  Consequently when a town-meeting was held on any exciting subject in Faneuil Hall, those only who obtained places near the moderator could even hear the discussion.  A few busy or interested individuals easily obtained the management of the most important affairs in an assembly in which the greater number could have neither voice nor hearing.  When the subject was not generally exciting, town-meetings were usually composed of the selectmen, the town officers, and thirty or forty inhabitants.  Those who thus came were for the most part drawn to it from some official duty or private interest, which, when performed or attained, they generally troubled themselves but little, or not at all, about the other business of the meeting.[2]

[Footnote 2:  Quincy’s Municipal History of Boston, p. 28.]

Under these circumstances it was found necessary in 1822 to drop the town-meeting altogether and devise a new form of government for Boston.  After various plans had been suggested and discussed, it was decided that the new government should be vested in a Mayor; a select council of eight persons to be called the Board of Aldermen; and a Common Council of forty-eight persons, four from each of twelve wards into which the city was to be divided.  All these officials were to be elected by the people.  At the same time the official name “Town of Boston” was changed to “City of Boston.”