58 JOHN GEORGE BOURINOT ON 
the well settled counties were divided into ridings,' each of which sent a representative 
to the legislature. In other cases one representative was elected for two or more 
counties. One of the first acts of the legislature was to change the names of the four 
divisions established in 1788 to the Eastern, Midland, Home, and Western Districts.” In 
the course of years the number was increased by the addition of the Johnstown, New- 
castle, Niagara, London and Gore Districts.’ These districts were intended mainly for 
legal and judicial purposes. But all these old names, so familiar in provincial history, 
have become obliterated by the county organisations. 
The Duke de la Rochefoucault-Liancourt, who visited the country in 1795, and had 
several interviews with Governor Simcoe, at Newark, now Niagara, the old capital of Upper 
Canada, informs us that the division of the four districts into counties was “purely mili- 
tary, and related merely to the enlisting, completing and assembling of the militia. The 
militia of each county is commanded by a lieutenant.” * Whilst the Duke was, no doubt, 
correct in the main, it must not be forgotten that the erection of counties was also 
necessary for purposes of representation. A section of the act establishing the Constitu- 
tion of Upper Canada expressly provided: His Majesty may authorise “the governor 
or lieutenant-governor of each of the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada to issue a 
proclamation dividing such province into districts or counties or circles, towns and town- 
ships, and appointing the limits thereof, and declaring and appointing the number of 
representatives to be chosen by each of such districts, counties or circles, towns and 
townships respectively. Members for the legislature were then, and for many years 
afterwards, chosen by freeholders having real property to the yearly value of forty shil- 
lings in districts, counties or circles, and five pounds sterling in towns and townships, or 
who paid a rental in the latter at the rate of ten pounds sterling a year.’ 
The legislature was composed of plain, practical men, who went energetically to 
work in the first sessions to provide for the wants of the few thousands of people scattered 
95 
throughout the wide extent of country over which their jurisdiction reached. For many 
years their principal duties were confined to measures for carrying on Jocal improvements. 
It was considered “requisite, for the maintenance of good order and the rigid execution of 
the laws, that proper officers should be appointed to superintend the observance thereof.” 7 
Accordingly, the people were authorised by statute to meet in any parish, township or 
reputed township or place on the warrant of the high-constable, who was to preside on 
such occasions. These assemblies were composed of the inhabitants who were house- 
holders and ratepayers in the locality interested, and were held in the early times, for 
convenience sake, in the parish church or chapel. They had to elect a parish or town 
clerk, who was to make out annual lists of the inhabitants within a district, keep the 
records, and perform other business connected with such an office. The other officers 
appointed were as follows: assessors, to assess all such rates and taxes “as shall be 
imposed by any act or acts of the legislature;” a collector, “to receive such taxes and 

'Trithings or Ridings were divisions peculiar to Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, though Robertson (Scotland 
under her early Kings, iii. 433) is inclined to trace them in Kent and Surrey. Bishop Stubbs, however, (Constitu- 
tional History, i. 100) considers the view “ very interesting but very conjectural.” 
? Upp. Can. Stat. 32, Geo. III. c. 8. 5 Bouchette, p. 590. Scadding’s Toronto, p. 361. 
* De la Rochefoucault-Liancourt, Voyage dans les Etats Unis et le Haut Canada, i. 434. 
5 31 Geo. III, c. 31. s. 14. 5 Imp. Stat. 31 Geo. ITI, c. 31, 
7 Upp. Can. Stat. 33 Geo. ITI, c. 2. 
