It was the sterling character of these villagers that then laid the foundation for the better half of a mighty city to come.  The “act” concludes:  “And then and there proceed to elect Five discreet freeholders, resident within said village, to be trustees thereof.”  So witness is borne to this vernacular quality of discretion in the twilight of Brooklyn history.

The aesthetic consideration of municipal documents has not received much attention.  The format of a municipal document, however, is in itself a delightful essay in unconscious self-characterisation.  Those of the United States express a plain democratic people.  They have, in fact, all the commonness of the job printer.  “Printed at the Journal Office,” is, indeed, their physical character.

The municipal documents of Great Britain are usually bound, in good English book-cloth, that peculiar fabric to which the connoisseur of books is so sensitive, and which, for some inexplicable reason, it is, apparently, impossible to manufacture in this country; or in neat boards, with cloth backs.  Or if in paper it is of an interesting colour and texture.  A noble heraldic device, the coat of arms of the city or borough, is stamped in gold above, or below, the title.  This is repeated upon the title-page, the typography of which is not without distinction.  The paper has more refinement than that used in such American publications.  The effect, in fine, is of something aristocratic.  The “Mayoral Minutes” of Kensington is rather a handsome quarto volume.

An added touch of distinction is given these British volumes by the presentation card, tipped in after the front cover.  A really exquisite little thing is this one:  it bears, placed with great nicety, its coat of arms above, delicately reduced in size; across the middle, in beautiful sensitive type, it reads:  “With the City Accountant’s Compliments”; in the lower left corner, in two lines, “Guildhall, Gloucester.”

The municipal documents of Germany are very German.  Verwaltungsbericht is one of those extraordinary words which are so long that when you look at one end of the word you cannot see the other end.  These volumes sometimes might possibly be mistaken, by a foreigner, for “gift books.”  Often they are bound, in pronounced German taste, in several strong colours in a striking combination.  Buttressing the decorative German letters, on cover and title page, appears some one of various conventionalisations of the German eagle, made very black, and wearing a crown and carrying a sceptre.  In “Verwaltungsbericht des Magistrats der Koniglichen Haupt- und Residenzstadt Hanover, 1906-7,” the frontispiece, the armorial bearings, “Wappen der Koniglichen” and so forth is a powerfully coloured lithograph, a very ornate affair, of lions (of egg-yolk yellow), armour, and leaves and castles.  These German publications are filled with excellent photographs of public places and buildings, and extensive unfolding coloured maps