Trial justices are appointed by the
governor for a term of two years."
[Sidenote: The counties are too large.]
This system, like the simple county system everywhere, is a
representative system; the people take no direct part in the
management of affairs. In one respect it seems obviously to need
amendment. In states where county government has grown up naturally,
after the Virginia fashion, the county is apt to be much smaller than
in states where it is simply a district embracing several township
governments. Thus the average size of a county in Massachusetts is 557
square miles, and in Connecticut 594 square miles; but in Virginia
it is only 383 and in Kentucky 307 square miles. In South Carolina,
however, where the county did not grow up of itself, but has been
enacted, so to speak, by a kind of afterthought, it has been made too
large altogether. The average area of the county in South Carolina is
about 1,000 square miles. Charleston County, more than 40 miles in
length and not less than 35 in average width, is larger than the
state of Rhode Island. Such an area is much too extensive for
local self-government. Its different portions are too far apart to
understand each other's local wants, or to act efficiently toward
supplying them; and roads, bridges, and free schools suffer
accordingly.
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