PENNSYLVANIA BOROUGHS.

The charter from Charles II. granting William Penn a princely domain to the west of the Delaware river, gave him the authority to "divide the country into Townes, Hundreds, and Counties, and to erect and incorporate Townes into Borroughes, and Borroughes into Citties, and to make and constitute ffaires and markets therein, with all other convenient priviledges and munities." This has been the fundamental clause in the municipal history of Pennsylvania since 1681. It gave Penn the right to perpetuate the institutions already in existence on the banks of the Delaware, or to modify them if he chose, and transplant to the new province other English institutions that he might consider necessary for the well governing of his people. This right he exercised by establishing the county as the largest political division of the province, by modifying the existing town with its court into the township under the authority of the county courts, and lastly by founding towns and villages, which he incorporated into the city and borough. Thus, by introducing the county, the township, the borough, and the city, he fixed the seal of his enduring influence upon the local government of Pennsylvania. The boroughs were established within a few years after the proprietary's arrival, and though they were but a handful during the colonial period, they form the connecting links between their numerous successors and the ancient boroughs of England. He who lives in a Pennsylvania borough to-day is as closely connected with the times of Edward the

Confessor as his brother farmer in the township or "tûnscipe," for both borough and township are common institutions of Anglo Saxon days. Many years ago Thomas Madox thus discoursed on the antiquity of boroughs: "Monsieur Littleton saith, Buroughs are the most ancient Towns in England; for in old times Cities were Buroughs, and so called. The truth of the matter is this, Burghes might well be the most ancient Towns in England. It was according to the Native Language of this Countrey to style them so. The Anglo Saxons called a City as well as a Town Burh or Burgh." The burh had an earlier meaning than that of the town; it was once, according to the dictum of Stubbs, " merely the fortified house and court yard of a king or noble; then it became the more organized form of the township," and gradually grew into the town with its charter of privileges, with its port-reeve, or its bailiff or mayor, its aldermen, and other corporate officers.

Considering the importance of the borough in the municipal history of the middle ages, and in both municipal and parliamentary affairs of modern England, and the frequency with which the word occurs in the annals of her history, it seems not a little strange that in the spread of English institutions in the United States, it has not found a more general acceptance. It may be that towns in several of the States are occasionally called boroughs, just as writers speak of boroughs in Italy or France, in a general way, but the three States of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Connecticut are the only ones now possessing borough systems. In New Jersey the first boroughs date back into the early part of the last century; they developed on independent lines, without uniformity of purpose or system till the enactment of a general law in 1878, which now regulates their future incorporation. Connecticut introduced a borough system with the beginning of the present century, to secure better local government for

'Firma Burgi, p. 2.

the larger villages than was afforded by the "town" system. Virginia thought to have a borough system at the beginning of her colonial life, and as early as 1619, says Mr. Stith, had eleven boroughs which sent members to her first legislative assembly. These were not boroughs in the sense of incorporated villages or towns, as the towns were yet to be; they were really plantations and hundreds, though by a stretch of language two or three of them were sometimes called cities. Representation being given these divisions in the House of Burgesses, after the manner of parliamentary representation in England, it was quite natural to style them boroughs, and the historian probably had the parliamentary boroughs in mind when he gave this name to the Virginia plantations. In her subsequent history, Virginia had two municipal boroughs that also had representation in the House of Burgesses, but there are now none in the State. Town has been the name generally given to the incorporated village, and in this, as in many other particulars, Virginia has set the fashion for the Southern States.

3

Lord Baltimore's charter of 1632 empowered him to "erect and incorporate Towns into Boroughs, and Boroughs into Cities," but Maryland did not produce towns any more than Virginia, and those that did struggle into existence were called towns and cities, not boroughs. In the grant of Maine to Sir Ferdinando Gorges in 1639, he was permitted to incorporate "Citties, Borroughs and Townes," and constitute the usual fairs and markets therein, but neither in the forests of Maine, nor in any New England colony did the boroughs take root with the original settlements. In New York the

1 History of Va., p. 161.

It is stated on p. 420 of Campbell's "History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia" that actual residence in the place he represented was not necessary to render a candidate eligible to a seat in the House of Burgesses. This is un-American now-a-days.

As late as 1716, a law speaks of boroughs that might be erected thereafter. See Laws of Maryland.

incorporated village is so styled till it becomes a city. This custom prevails in several States, particularly in the West, where the institutions of New York have been largely adopted. In Kansas we find the anomaly of styling all incorporated villages cities. It is no uncommon thing there to find a mayor and council presiding over their little city of less than four hundred souls. Thus in various States of the Union we see the borough, the town, the village, the city, all meaning essentially the same thing, all derived from the municipal life of England. They might all have been styled boroughs, but it was the taste of the people to call them otherwise.

It may perhaps insure greater clearness to explain here that we have used the word "town" in this paper as it is used in Pennsylvania, where it is applied indifferently to a large village, a borough, or a city, but not to the township. The term borough has not this general application, like the town, but always means the incorporated village or town possessing a particular form of government. Boroughs are by courtesy sometimes called cities, but cities are not called boroughs.

Writers upon the political history of Pennsylvania have, so far, given little or no attention to her borough system. This may partly arise from the fact that there were but few boroughs in the early years of the colony, and these had no greater signification in the general politics of the province than the township. Being so few and small, and without separate representation in the Assembly, they escaped notice. Mr. Foster has ably shown us what political influence has been exerted upon Rhode Island by her towns throughout the whole extent of her history. No such dominant power was exerted by the towns of Pennsylvania. Nevertheless, in the quiet of her early years, the Keystone State was laying

'See Foster's "Town Government in Rhode Island:" Johns Hopkins University Studies, Fourth Series, No. II.