in 1850. The making of the Chickering pianos
goes back to 1823, and of Mason & Hamlin reed organs to 1854; these are
to-day very important and distinctive manufactures of the city. The
ready-made clothing industry began about 1830.

_Government._--Beyond a recognition of its existence in 1630, when it
was renamed, Boston can show no legal incorporation before 1822;
although the uncertain boundaries between the powers of colony and
township prompted repeated petitions to the legislature for
incorporation, beginning as early as 1650. In 1822 Boston became a city.
Thus for nearly two centuries it preserved intact its old "town"
government, disposing of all its affairs in the "town-meeting" of its
citizens. Excellent political training such a government unquestionably
offered; but it became unworkable as disparities of social condition
increased, as the number of legal voters (above 7000 in 1822) became
greater, and as the population ceased to be homogeneous in blood. All
the citizens did not assemble; on the contrary ordinary business seldom
drew out more than a hundred voters, and often a mere handful. From very
early days executive officers known as "select-men," constables, clerks
of markets, hog reeves, packers of meat and fish, &c., were chosen; and
the select-men, particularly, gained power as the attendance of the
freemen on meetings grew onerous. Interested cliques could control the
business of the town-meeting in ordinary times, and boisterousness
marred its democractic excellence in exciting times. Large sums were
voted loosely, and expended by executive boards without any budgetary
control. The whole system was full of looseness, complexity and
makeshifts. But the tenacity with which it was clung to, proved that it
was suited to the community; and whether helpful or harmful to, it was
not inconsistent with, the continuance of growth and prosperity. Various
other Massachusetts townships, as they have grown older, have been
similarly compelled to abandon their old form of government. The powers
of the old township were much more extensive than those of the present
city of Boston, including as they did the determination of the residence
of strangers, the allotment of land, the grant of citizenship, the
fixing of wages and prices, of the conditions of lawsuits and even a
voice in matters of peace and war. The city charter was revised in 1854,
and again reconstructed in important particulars by laws of 1885
separati