32 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VoL. I. 



holders " in public assembly were not authorized to impose taxes— that 

 would be done in those da,ys only by Act of Parliament— but they had the 

 right by resolution to " determine upon the height or sufficiency of any 

 fence or fences " within the township. There can be no mistake as to the 

 source from which the idea of this primitive municipal system came ; the 

 Upper Canadian " town meeting " was simply an adaptation of the "town 

 meeting " of New England, modified by the omission of some of the more 

 democratic prerogatives of the latter and by the addition of special features 

 that were probably imported direct from Great Britain. 



During the same session two other municipal statutes of importance were 

 passed, olie regulating " the laying out, amending and keeping in repair the 

 public highways and roads," and the other authorizing "the levjmg 

 and collecting of assessments and rates in every district." Some of tlie 

 provisions of the latter statute are sufficiently interesting to merit notice. 

 The assessors of each township were required to arrange all the " inhabi- 

 tant householders " in eight classes, according to the amount of their real 

 and personal property, from fifty pounds upwards, and to make out a tax 

 roll, one copv of which was to be signed by two justices and aflixed to the 

 church door or some other place of public resort, while another was to be 

 delivered to the town clerk. The rate of taxation was two shillings and 

 six pence a year for each fifty pounds of assessment, and this was to be paid 

 by the collectors of townships to the treasurer appointed by the justices in 

 session for the district to which they belonged, and to be paid out by him on 

 the order of the same justices under statutory authority. The various ser- 

 vices to which these funds might be devoted were, according to the preamble 

 to the statute, building and repairing a courthouse and jail, paying the 

 jailer's salary, maintaining the prisoners, building and repairing houses of 

 correction, constructing and repairing bridges, paying the fees of coroners 

 and other officers, destroying bears and wolves, and paying members of Par- 

 liament " wages," not to exceed ten shillings a day for the period of their 

 actual attendance. 



Statutes were subsequently passed by the first Parliament amending those 

 already referred to, and during its third session it undertook to deal with 

 the still vexed question, the regulation of the retail traffic in spiritu- 

 ous liquors. The ordinance passed by the Legislative Council under the 

 authority of the Quebec Act of 1774 was repealed as "inconvenient," and 

 the granting of licenses to sell intoxicating drink was vested in the justices 

 of the district, who were authorized to determine the number of licenses to 

 be granted, and also to decide as to whether the applicant for a license was 

 " a sober, honest and diligent man, and a good subject of our Lord the 

 King." The evidence on which the latter point was to be decided was 



