Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 19.pdf/56

 NEW ENGLAND TOWN LAW mayor and board of five aldermen, but their duties are mostly ministerial, resembling to a certain extent those of selectmen. This new system goes into effect January 7, 1907, and its results will be watched with much interest. Another interesting example of a large municipality clinging to the form of town government, and one which Mr. Garland speaks of in his book, is that of the town of Brookline, Massachusetts, a town having over 4000 voters and appropriating annu ally over $1,300,000. Seven or eight years ago an overcrowded town meeting drew attention to the dangers attending the administration of the affairs of so large a municipality under the town meeting sys tem. Many changes were discussed, and finally the town decided to remain under the old system, but to ask the legislature to provide it with a kind of safety valve in case an occasion should arise when the old system became unmanageable. The safety valve is, in substance, this: If any meet

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ing is overcrowded, a vote passed at such meeting may, within a short time, upon the petition of a certain number of voters, be submitted to be balloted upon by all the voters of the town at an election conducted like an election for officers.1 Although the legislature granted this request in 1901," the town has never yet had occasion to act under it, for the largest attendance at town meeting since the passage of the statute has been 401, while an attendance of 700 is required before the statute becomes opera tive. This expedient adopted in the case of the town of Brookline seems to offer a solu tion to the problem which is pressing on those towns that are growing to the dimen sions of cities, but that still wish to keep to the time-honored system of the New England town meeting. Boston, Mass, December, 1906. tained in the Newport charter. s Act of 1901, chap. 201.
 * Similar provisions for a general vote are con