10 cont'd.

The borough system of government for small communities was first introduced into New Jersey March 28, 1790, by an act incorporating the "Borough of Elizabeth." During the next ninety years a number of similar municipalities were erected in various parts of the State, each of which was the creation of a special act of the legislature. No general law on the subject was enacted until April 5, 1878, when what has since been known as "The General Borough Act" became a law. It provided that the inhabitants of any township, or part of a township, embracing an area not to exceed four square miles, and containing a population not exceeding five thousand, might become a body politic and corporate in fact and in law whenever, at a special election to be called for that purpose, it might be decided by a majority of votes of the electors of the proposed borough qualified to vote at elections for State and township officers.

For a period of sixteen years following the passage of this act very few boroughs were organized in the State, only three of them being in Bergen County. In the spring of 1894 an act was passed establishing an entirely new system of public instruction. By this act the old school districts were blotted out and each township erected into a separate and distinct district. All the taxpayers of each township were thenceforth required to assume and pay, pro rata, the debts already incurred by the several old districts, as well as all future debts of the township for school purposes. The people complained against the injustice of such a law, and sought a way to escape its operation. By the terms of the law it was inoperative in all incor-

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porated boroughs, towns, villages, and cities, and accordingly a rush was made to form boroughs, particularly in Bergen County, and had not the legislature hastened to check this rush by amending the school law the whole county would have been carved into boroughs in less than two years. As it was, twenty-six boroughs were erected in the county from January 23, 1894, to December 18, of the same year. The amendment which the legislature made to the school act provided that no borough might maintain a school separate from the township unless there should be four hundred children within its limits. This so effectually checked the borough movement that only five have since been formed.

The following table shows the names of the boroughs organized in Bergen County to date, the dates of their organization, and the townships from which they were respectively taken:

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