Re: OT: baloney and cheese

On Mon, Aug 04, 2003 at 01:43:10PM -0500, Thomas R. Wier wrote:
> > "Mark J. Reed" wrote:
> > > Only 39 counties in the country?  Must be nice.  The U.S. state of
> > > Georgia alone has 159 of the things . . .
> >
> > Of course, the State of Georgia has a somewhat larger land area than
> > England.
>
> That's not entirely the point, though.  [...] England [...]
> had a better level of transportation infrastructure than Georgia,
> and thus it was less practical in Georgia to insist
> that government officials move long distances to a local government
> center.
Indeed.  That is the origin of our large county count; the requirement
was that the county seat be accessible from all points within the county
without an overnight stay when travelling by mule.

It was still an awful large number of names to memorize (and then promptly
forget) in history class. :)

-Mark