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About the close of the last Parliament, and the beginning of this, several agents for boroughs went about, and I remember well that it was in every one of their mouths "Sir, your election will cost you three thousand pounds, if you are independent; but if the Ministry supports you, it may be done for two, and perhaps for less;" and, indeed, the thing spoke itself.
We both felt better after that was off our minds; we felt better still when the north-bound train rolled leisurely into the white glare of Portulacca, and presently rolled out again, quite as leisurely, bound, thank Heaven, for that abused aggregation of sinful boroughs called New York.
The functions of highwayman and magistrate were combined in one individual. By degrees, the class of freemen, artisans, traders, and the like, becoming the more numerous, built stronger and better houses outside the castle gates of the "land's master" or the burghs of the more powerful nobles. The superiors, anxious to increase their own importance, favored the progress of the little boroughs.
To prevent such a dire catastrophe it was determined to create a number of new parliamentary boroughs so that many places "that could scarcely pass the rank of the poorest villages in the poorest country in Christendom" were allowed to return members, provided only that it was certain they would return Protestants.
A peer or great squire who could return the members for a borough took a worthy pride in the abilities and reputation of those whom he thus sent to Parliament; especially the leaders of the two parties sought out promising young men for their seats; and it has often been pointed out that, of the men who in the House of Commons had risen to eminence in the country before the Reform Bill, there was scarcely one who had not owed his introduction to Parliament to the patron of one of those boroughs which were now wholly or partially disfranchised; while on one or two occasions these "rotten boroughs," as, since Lord Chatham's time, they were often derisively called, had proved equally useful in providing seats for distinguished statesmen who, for some reason or other, had lost the confidence of their former constituents.
Here was a case in which the chief magistrate of one of the most ancient boroughs in England had been found dead in his official room under circumstances which clearly seemed to point to murder.
By the summer of 1921, the agents of the principal promoter of this scheme, Harrison Parker, were operating in New York City, and scores of salesmen were covering the various boroughs selling stock. Within two weeks all the agencies interested in protecting cooperation were organized to fight this fraud.
Randolph was called back in May, 1683, to aid in the legal proceedings which were immediately set on foot. Other charters were falling: that of the Bermuda Company was under attack; that of the City of London was already forfeited; and those of other English boroughs were in danger. On June 27, a writ of quo warranto was issued out of the Court of King's Bench against the colony.
Thousands of our American school children all over our country are still being given a version of our Revolution and the political state of England then, which is as faulty as was George III's government, with its fake parliament, its "rotten boroughs," its Little Sarum.
The city would be in effect a federation of the wards or boroughs. At an annual "town meeting" he would vote for the "selectmen" or the ward council who would have in charge the local interests of the primary unit, which would be comprehensive in the case of a township, necessarily more limited in the case of a ward.
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