Municipal Scraps. suddenly became the legislators and ad ministrators of a Latin-speaking country. The Lombard law appears to have called habitatores or inhabitantes all persons law fully living in a city, while the voting citizens, who served in the army, assisted in the administration of justice, and helped in the government of cities, were called arimanni, exercitales or cives. The term occurs in the ninth century, and Hegel, the chief authority on early Italian cities, refutes the Savigny statements that have been rather generally accepted, even in Du Cange, Gloss. The term " inhabitant " is a sore trial to every overseer of the poor, and one smiles in reading of like difficulties in conquered Lombardy. The term " warden " presents no difficulty, but it is worth pointing out that in Massa chusetts alone it means the chief election officer. This odd meaning was bestowed by Chief Justice Shaw, in 1821, and is now current throughout Massachusetts (St. 1893, ch. 417, sec. 106, 108). When Shaw drafted the Boston city charter, it was in tended that elections should be held in ward meetings. Each ward had a clerk, but more was required to conduct elections properly. It was then that a jingle led the learned jurist to coin the new term, and to provide that " it shall be the duty of such warden to preside at all meetings of the citizens of such ward, to preserve order therein" (St. 1 82 1, ch. 11o, sec. 3). Gradually the term passed into the general laws of Massa chusetts, and acquired much the same meaning as another Massachusetts term, "moderator," both denoting the presiding officer at certain public meetings. From 1 76 1 to 1820 the Sunday police officers in Massachusetts were called wardens (4 Prov. Laws, 417; general town act of March 23, 1786). The term "selectman" may be called an other Massachusetts invention. Selectmen are the standing committee of the town, and date back to the earliest period of the Col
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ony. The Boston Town Records first used the term on Nov. 27, 1643; but Charlestown is supposed to have had it in 1635, and Dorchester, Mass., voted on Oct. 8, 1633, that " there shall be twelve men selected out of the company that may, or the great est part of them, meet as aforesaid," etc. Ward's " Body of Liberties," 74, called them "select persons," in 1 641, and a year later the General Court called them " the selected townsmen." The term was not wholly in digenous. Queen Elizabeth vested the power of municipal corporations in few persons, because she thought it easier to control a few than a great many. The persons that wielded the municipal power were called " select bodies," and the famous case of corporations, 4 Co. jj, uses the term " selected number" three times, mean ing those that held the power of the muni cipalities, as distinct from those not mem bers of the close corporations Elizabeth and the justices meant to establish. The govern ing bodies were popularly known as select bodies, and the term was familiar to the early settlers of Massachusetts. For obvious reasons the leaders avoided the phrase, which was not without a touch of reproach; but the plain men used it indiscriminately and without reserve when they referred to their town officers, and in a few years the term "selectman" passed into the law of Massachusetts, where it has remained ever since. The precise powers of a selectman have never been defined. He has no powers except those committed to him by the General Court or the town meeting. And the town meeting has charge of the pruden tials. This term is another Massachusetts — well, crotchet? The Boston city govern ment has charge of " all the fiscal, pruden tial, and municipal concerns of said city." In 1642 the General Court described select men as " appointed for managing the pru dential affairs" of towns, and the " Body of Liberties," 66, used the term, in 1641, as
