EXECI"M E 110ARDS AND GFFICERS. These range from the mayor and council committees to the more or less independent boards and commissions so common in the United States, and on down to minor officials acting, under these officers. The number and variety of services which these boards and officials perform has been partly indi cated in the enumeration of the city's functions. In cities where the council is supreme, the com mittees of that body exercise large executive powers. Great reliance, however. is placed on trained executive officers selected by such commit tees or by the council as a whole for the various departments of municipal activity. Outside of the United States such officials are seldom chosen by popular vote, hut in this country it is not uncommon to choose many of these officers by popular election. Minor positions are. of course, filled by the board eoncerned or by the chief ex ecutive officer responsible for the work under taken by the appointee, rather than by popular election or by the emitted. The town clerk is the most important official in an English municipal corporation. Besides his duties as recording offi cer of the eouncil and general secretary of the municipality, he aids as legal adviser of the coun cil and as custodian of records. His tenure of
office is frequently for life. he receives a high salary, and he is a trained official much as is the mayor of a German city. The city clerk in the United States is never an officer of sueh trainine, and importance. Generally he is simply a record: ing cacti. to the council, or perhaps a kind of mayor's assistant. Legal advice to the mumcipal authorities in the United states is given by an unwer -t? led the corporation counsel, and suits are prosecuted and defended by a city attorney, although the two classeA of service may he rends•red by One man, Mid the names vary in diffeient localities. The city engineer is every where a trained man, and municipal engineering has become a distinct branch of the engineer ing profession. In the large cities the legal and engineering work is so extensive and im pertant as to require large staffs of experts. f•his is also the ease in the financial depart ment. using the latter term to embrace all the executive officers employed in assessing, collect ing. and disbursing money, and in maintaining a check on collections and disbursements.