Page:History of Barrington, Rhode Island (Bicknell).djvu/310

 246 THE HISTORY OF BAERINGTON. closes with the town meeting of March 29, 1744. We have therefore lost the records of the town for portions of three years. The Barrington town meeting, begun in the year 171 7, as a separate institution from Swansea, and continued to the present day, is an exact copy and illustration of the demo- cratic principles and methods established at Plymouth and in the cabin of the Mayflower, and still further traceable through English history to Saxon and Anglo-Saxon origin. It was an annual reference to the people of the choice of their rulers, and an annual declaration of the popular will on all subjects concerning the civil, and, at that time, the religious concerns of the people. The majority principle determined all matters relating to the town. The officers of the town, subject to an annual election, were a Moderator, to preside over the town meetings, a Clerk to keep the records of the town meetings, and of the Town Council, or Board of Select- men; a Board of Selectmen, of three members, to have the charge of the town affairs during the year, and to carry out the declared or assumed will of the freemen ; the selectmen also usually acted as a board of assessors, to assess the taxes on the ratable estates and polls of the town ; a town treasurer to have charge of the public moneys of the town, and receive and pay out the same on order of the town or the selectmen; surveyors of highways, to view and repair the highways as directed by the town ; a constable to assist in keeping the peace, and to make arrests of disorderly persons ; tything men, to preserve order at the meeting-house, and to collect the moneys due for the support of the minister of the town; fence viewers, to adjust all matters of difference between contiguous owners, as to proper fences, location of boundary lines, and other matters of like nature ; sealer of leather, to inspect leather used in the manufacture and repair of boots, shoes, harness, etc.; pound keepers, to have charge of the public pounds, and to impound cattle, horses, etc., going at large in the public highways, and to collect fines that the law imposed ; jurors to serve on the grand jury ; hog-reeves, to