A mere village has no claim to a municipal representation. By a
village I mean a place whose inhabitants are not markedly
distinguished by occupation or social relations from those of the
rural districts adjoining, and for whose local wants the
arrangements made for the surrounding territory will suffice. Such
small places have rarely a sufficient public to furnish a tolerable
municipal council: if they contain any talent or knowledge
applicable to public business, it is apt to be all concentrated in
some one man, who thereby becomes the dominator of the place. It is
better that such places should be merged in a larger
circumscription. The local representation of rural districts will
naturally be determined by geographical considerations; with due
regard to those sympathies of feeling by which human beings are so
much aided to act in concert, and which partly follow historical
boundaries, such as those of counties or provinces, and partly
community of interest and occupation, as in agriculture, maritime,
manufacturing, or mining districts. Different kinds of local
business require different areas of representation. The Unions of
parishes have been fixed on as the most appropriate basis for the
representative bodies which superintend the relief of indigence;
while, for the proper regulation of highways, or prisons, or police, a
large extent, like that of an average county, is not more than
sufficient.
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