[Sidenote:  Traditions of good government lacking.] These instances of New York and Philadelphia sufficiently illustrate the beginnings of city government in the United States.  In each case the system was copied from England at a time when city government in England was sadly demoralized.  What was copied was not the free republic of London, with its noble traditions of civic honour and sagacious public spirit, but the imperfect republics or oligarchies into which the lesser English boroughs were sinking, amid the foul political intrigues and corruption which characterized the Stuart period.  The government of American cities in our own time is admitted on all hands to be far from satisfactory.  It is interesting to observe that the cities which had municipal government before the Revolution, though they have always had their full share of able and high-minded citizens, do not possess even the tradition of good government.  And the difficulty, in those colonial times, was plainly want of adequate self-government, want of responsibility on the part of the public servants toward their employers the people.

QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT.

1.  What was the origin of the casters and chesters that are found in England to-day?

2.  Trace the development of the English borough until it became a kind of hundred.

3.  Compare this borough, with the hundred in the administration of justice.

4.  Trace the further development of the borough in cases in which it became a county.

5.  Illustrate this development with London, showing how the elements of the township, the hundred, and the shire government enter into its civic organization.

6.  Explain the origin and the objects of the various guilds.

7.  Speak of the “town guild” under the following heads:—­

a.  Its composition and power. b.  Its relation to citizenship. c.  Its place of meeting. d.  The aldermen. e.  The common council. f.  The chief magistrate.

8.  Compare the government of London with that of Great Britain or of the United States.

9.  Give some account of the lord mayor, the aldermen, and the councilmen of London.

10.  Distinguish between London the city and London the metropolis.

11.  Show how the English cities and boroughs became bulwarks of liberty by (1) their facilities for obtaining justice, (2) the strength of their walls, and (3) the length of their purses.

12.  Contrast the power of London with that of the throne.

13.  What notable advance in government was made under the leadership of Simon de Montfort?

14.  What abuses crept into the government of many of the English cities?

15.  What was the Puritan attitude towards such abuses?

16.  Give an account of the government of New York city:—­

a.  The charter of 1686. b.  The governing corporation. c.  The public land. d.  The city’s privileges as a county. e.  Officers by election and by appointment. f.  Judicial functions. g.  Martial law. h.  The charter of 1821.

17.  Give an account of the government of Philadelphia:—­