Mining Camps; A Study in American Frontier Government (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1884. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VIII. A STUDY OP ALCALDES. The heart of the Spanish local system is the alcaldeship. We must, however, turn to the fruitful Orient for the origin of the office: it is, in fact, the kadi of Persia and Arabia, the alkaid of the Saracens and Moors; it is also the village judgeship of Spain in its heroic age, when Aragon possessed the most liberal constitution in Europe.1 Art, romance, and literature have loved to linger over the picturesque features of this office; tales of the East, and peasant-songs of the Spanish peninsula, alike describe the "judge of the village," whose power for good or evil was almost unlimited. The very forms that the word has taken in the Spanish language are evidences of the universality and importance of the thing itself. An alcaidia is a townwarden, or governor of a town, or it is the district of his jurisdiction; his wife is the aleaidesa; the duty anciently levied on all cattle driven across the district 1 In Aragon, the citizens of the free towns, or puehlos, had provincial laws, organized guilds, and elected alcaldes. They chose deputies to the cortes, or legislative council; and this council elected the supreme judge, or justicia, levied taxes, and appointed minor officers. Aragon, Valencia, Castile, and Catalonia held cortes of three estates, -- prelates, nobles, and deputies. Leon in 1188 assembled the first council of elected deputies. Barcelona grew from the Spanish Mark established by Karl the Great, and became independent in the days of Charles le Chauve. or through the town was the alcaida; the alcaiceria was the market-place. These are earlier forms, and point to wider sway, and even greater powers, than the modern alcaldes ever possessed. The true alcalde was judge of the town, and ex-officio mayor of the council. ...