LOCAL GOVERNMENT. Three general types of local government prevail in the United States. They are the town system in New England, the county system in the South, and the mixed system in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jer sey, and a number of the North Central States. In the town system the sovereign Meal authority is the town meeting, or gen eral assembly of all the qualified voters of the town. A regular annual session of this as sembly is held in the spring, and extra sessions aro held throughout the year as necessity re quires. At the annual meeting, which is pre sided over by a 'moderator,' the town officers are elected, the local budget passed, and other mat ters of local interest decided upon. The princi pal town officers are a number of selectmen ranging from three to nine, who are the general managers of the town affairs; the town clerk, who is the keeper of the records; the treasurer ; the tax assessors; the tax collector ; the school committee, and a variety of minor officers such as constables, overseers of the poor, surveyors, fence-viewers, etc. Where the pure town sys tem prevails the county plays but little part in local administration, and in some States like Rhode Island there are, strictly speaking, no county officers, the county being merely a judicial district without corporate personality.
In the Southern States, where the county type of local government prevails, conditions are re versed. There the county is the political unit, and the administration of all local matters, ex cept educational and municipal affairs, is in trusted to county officers. The chief county au thority is the board of county commissioners or supervisors, each member of which represents one of the magisterial districts into which the county is divided. There is no authority which corresponds to the New England town meeting.
Besides the commissioners, the chief county officers are the sheriff, the clerk, the commission er of education, the coroner, the assessor, and sometimes a tax collector, although the collection of the taxes is a duty generally imposed upon the sheriff. The subdivisions of the county in
some States are known as precincts, in others as townships; in Delaware, as hundreds; in Georgia, as militin districts; in Louisiana (where the counties are called parishes), as wards; in ..\laryland, as election districts; in Mississippi, as supervisor's districts, etc. In the Southern States they are mere judicial or election districts. In each is usually to be found one or more justices of the peace and their ministerial officers or constables, but the districts are in no sense political corporations.
The mixed system which originated in New York and Pennsylvania is a compromise be tween the two types described above. Tfere both the town and county elements exist, but are combined in different ratios. In New York the chief local authority is the board of supervisors, consisting of a representative chosen from each town in the county. In Penn sylvania it is a board of three commissioners elected from the county at large. The New York supervisor presides over the town administra tion, while the Pennsylvania commissioner is in no sense a township officer. In the mixed type, the town or township is a body corporate and politic. Each has its clerk, assessor, collector, commissioner of highways, justices of the peace, constable, etc. In New Yo•k there is an an nual town meeting at which local officers are elected and matters of poor relief, taxes, schools, etc., attended to. In the pure Pennsylvania form the town meeting does not exist, town af fairs being managed by a corps of officers elected by the people of the town. The New York, or supervisor type of local government, has been adopted in Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Ne braska, New Jersey, and elsewhere. The Penn sylvania, or commissioner system, has been transplanted to Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri, and in a modified form to Minnesota and the Dakotas. For local government in the towns and cities, see MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT.