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There were the selectmen of Boston plain patriarchal fathers of the people, excellent representatives of the old puritanical founders whose sombre strength had stamped so deep an impress upon the New England character.
When the three selectmen saw Mary Dunbar stepping down the little slope, they gathered about them all their official dignity. Ebenezer Tolman sat a little straighter than usual, and uttered a portentous cough.
We selectmen talked the thing over going home, but Cap'n Benijah didn't speak till we was turning in at his gate. Then he fetched his knee a thump with his fist, and says he, in the most disgusted tone ever I heard: "A house and lot for nothing," he says, "a wife to do the work for him, and five hundred dollars to spend! Sometimes the way this world's run gives me moral indigestion."
In very small townships the selectmen themselves may act as assessors of taxes or overseers of the poor.
"There's been some controversy and much criticism of the selectmen for allowing a white lad, the child of Christian parents, the grandson of a clergyman, to leave all Christian folk and folds, and herd with a pagan, to become, as it were, a mere barbarian.
On July 28 he sent his answer to the selectmen of Boston, and it is such an important paper that it must be given in full. It was as follows: UNITED STATES, 28th of July, 1795. GENTLEMEN: In every act of my administration I have sought the happiness of my fellow-citizens.
And Robert Hagburn, having to bring a message from camp to the selectmen here, had it in charge to bring the girl, whom his mother has taken to board." "Then the poor thing is crazy?" asked Septimius.
Yet in the great riot caused by the illegal impounding of Steve Gubbins's bull, when Bluetown was divided against itself, her constabulary force and "specials" ignominiously beaten and routed, Captain Muggs, with an heroic deafness to the call of glory and the selectmen, from a reluctance to shed the blood of his fellow-citizens, refused to call out his company, and concealed himself in a hayloft till the affray was over, the pound completely demolished, and the bull rescued from the minions of the law.
The meeting is consulted on these several points; it adopts the principle, marks out the site, votes the rate, and confides the execution of its resolution to the selectmen.
This produced a disagreeable, but in some respects laughable scene in the ceremonies of the day. Both parties sincerely desired to pay the highest honors to the chief magistrate of the nation, but political considerations separated the governor and the selectmen of Boston.
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