popular magistrates in the country were-the Tithing and Hundred Reeves; the former were always, the latter mostly, elected by their respective communes. The smaller questions of debt and police were probably decided by these men in their respective courts; the freemen of the Tithing would meet as occasion required; the Hundred Court was summoned once a month." In the court of the Tithing we may discover the germ of vestry meeting and town meeting, and in Tithingmen, the origin of Selectvestrymen and Selectmen.

The Saxon Tithingman was the Selectman of the Tithing. He was an elected officer, like the Petty Constable, who succeeded him. The mediaæval Tithingman's functions were patriarchial and authoritative. He was the Town Father in His relations were

the true and original sense of that term. with families, as in early New England. He watched over his hamlet as the New England Tithingman watched over his neighborhood and the congregation. He kept the public peace; he was arbiter between neighbors and kinsmen; he regulated the division of lands, the use of pastures and meadows; he announced the time of harvest and when enclosures were to be removed or fences put up. He was a man having authority in a small neighborly way. foreshadowed the Petty Constable and the easy-going Selectmen of our modern New England Towns. But the main idea of his office was the same as that perpetuated in the original Tithingmen of New England, viz: elective, patriarchal headship over a neighborhood of at least ten families. This is the original, fundamental character of the office, considered as a local institution.

He

We have found the heart of our subject. We have stripped off the ecclesiastical tissue, which in later times enshrouded the New England Tithingman, who is now undoubtedly dead. We have dissected away the outer layer of constabulary duties, and have found, in the patriarchal control of a Tithing, the real mechanism which for

many centuries gave such energetic life to the Tithingman. The biologists in Baltimore have recently succeeded in isolating the mammalian heart, and in keeping it alive, by a transfusion of foreign blood, for hours after the rest of the body is entirely dead. Possibly by some such method of procedure, in the case of a live subject like the modern Constable or Selectman, we may derive a more intimate knowledge of that older institution, whose life is now beating on in kindred forms.

Norman Constables in America. Read before the New England Histeric, Genealogical Society, February 1, 1882. By H. B. ADAMS.

Village Communities in America - Cape Anne and Salem Plantations. Read in part at a Field Meeting of the Essex Institute, August 31, 1881. By H. B. ADAMS.

Origin and Development of the Municipal Government of New York City. I. The Dutch Period. II. The English Period. Published in the Magazine of American History, May and September, 1882. By J. F. JAMESON, Ph. D. Johns Hopkins University, 1882; Assistant in History, Johns Hopkins University.

Administration of Berlin compared with that of New York. Two articles in The Nation, March 23, 30, 1882. To be revised and enlarged for this series. By R. T. ELY, Ph. D. Heidelberg, 1879; Associate Professor of Political Economy, Johns Hopkins University.

Local Government of Michigan, and the North-west. Read before the Social Science Association, at Saratoga, September 7, 1882. By E. W. BEMIS, A. B. Amherst College, 1880.

French and English Institutions in Wisconsin. By W. F. ALLEN, A. M. Harvard, 1866; Professor of History and Latin, University of Wisconsin.

Civil Government in Iowa. By JESSE MACY, A. B. Iowa College, 1869; Professor of Historical and Political Science, lowa College.

Indian, French, and English Towns in Ohio. By JOHN T. SHORT, Ph. D. Leipzig, 1880; Professor of History, Ohio State University.

The Parish Institutions of Maryland. With Illustrations from Parish Records. Abstract in Johns Hopkins University Circular, August, 1882. By EDWARD INGLE, A. B. Johns Hopkins University, 1882.

Old and New Towns of Maryland. Read before the Maryland Historical Society, December 11, 1882. By LEWIS W. WILHELM, A. B. Johns Hopkins University, 1880; Graduate Scholar in History.

Old Maryland Manors. Note in Johns Hopkins University Circular, May, 1882. By JOHN JOHNSON, A. B. Johns Hopkins University, 1881. History of Free Schools in Maryland. By BASIL SOLLERS, City College, 1871, and L. W. WILHELM, A. B. Johns Hopkins University, 1880. The Institutions of North Carolina. Read before the Hist. and Polit. Science Association. Abstract in Johns Hopkins University Circular, May, 1882. By HENRY E. SHEPHERD, University of Virginia, late Superintendent of Public Instruction, Baltimore, now President of the College of Charleston, S. C.

Local Self Government in South Carolina,-the Parish, the District, and the County. With other papers on Free Schools, Markets, Fairs, Militia, &c. Abstracts in Johns Hopkins University Circulars, February, May, 1882. By B. J. RAMAGE, A. B., Newberry College, 1880. Graduate Scholar in History, J. H. U. Read before the South Carolina Historical Society, December 15, 1882.

Montauk, and the Common Lands of Easthampton, Long Island. Abstract in Johns Hopkins University Circular, May, 1882. By J. F. JAMESON.