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10
"recognitions" were customary in order to ascertain by
the sworn testimony of the inhabitants, the local feelings
and grievances of particular districts. Adverting to the
circumstances under which the township of Westminster
was founded, the community of interest and the facilities
for frequent meetings of the inhabitants, will of themselves
suggest that the conditions favoured the development of a
system of local self-government thoroughly popular in
principle, and therefore vigorous in practice. So powerful
was the voice of the inhabitants, even at this primitive
stage of local control, that the assent of representatives of
each township was necessary to enable the justices to allow
or levy the taxes to which reference has already been made.
Whether or not these representatives were chosen at the
conventions of parishioners at the village club, or on the
village green is not recorded, nor are any of the regulations
by which such choice was made—probably the proceedings
were governed by unwritten laws—yet the system must be
admitted to be the germ of that which to-day gives the
parishioners a direct voice and power and liberty in the
choice of their representative officers.
Very little can be gleaned from such records as are preserved
as to how far the water supply, drainage, abatement
of nuisances, and other matters affecting the public health
were regulated at this early period by statute law—
deficiencies and neglect in these essentials were for the most
part dealt with at common law, as was also the repair of
the highways. The cleansing and lighting of the streets
were, as yet, not attempted, although the attention of Parliament
was given to matters of much less public interest.
A multitude of penal laws were enacted in the reigns of
Edward III. (1327) and Edward IV. (1461) to restrain the
wearing of excessive apparel, short doublets, long coats,
&c. These were, however, expunged from the Statute
Book by James I. Even the diet of the citizens in common
was ruled by a statute of 10 Edward III (1337) which