Excerpt from Town and County Government in the English Colonies of North America: The Toppan Prize Essay for 1883 The best description of parish government in the Olden time is Toulmin Smith's Parish; but the book should be used with great caution as Mr. Smith is an enthusiast. I wish it to be understood that I am greatly in debted to this book, and I here give a general reference to it. But all the authorities cited in the text have been carefully examined by me, and have often been found to have been strangely twisted by Mr. Smith, an example of which is given on page 19; and, furthermore, a great many of these examples have been used by Mr. Smith and myself to elucidate different matters. The best description of the English parish at the present day is to be found in The State and the Church, by the Hon. Arthur Elliot in The English Citizen Series. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.