Ipswich, Massachusetts, is a town of about 7,000 people. It has two factories, which together employ about 500 from the town. There is a bank and a theater. Ipswich's best-known product is the Ipswich clam; the town's chief landmark is a long sandy beach.

On Monday night, Ipswich held its annual town meeting. 633 (about 16%) of the town's 4016 registered voters crowded into the local high school's combination gymnasium-auditorium for the three and a half hours of voting and debate. Some smaller New England towns still have the traditional all day meetings with a communal lunch between seasons; Ispwich's telescoped version preserves only parts of the older form. The meeting considers all important matters of town policy for the coming year, which are listed in an agenda, (called the "warrant.") Any group of citizens can enter a question in this warrant by petition.

The first business before Monday's meeting was the election of various town officials-among them Fence-viewer, Surveyor of Lumber and Bark, and Clam Commissioner. The next items in the warrant covered every sort of town problem: among them a plant to install parking meters in the center of town, appropriations for the repair of the Town Wharf, the need for a new fire engine. Each article in the warrant had been considered by the town's Finance Committee, a part appointive, part elective board, and this committee made recommendations to the meeting.

On many of the recommendations there was little debate. Of the 30 articles passed on by the meeting, nineteen were voted unanimously, including a half million appropriation for general running expenses. On some of the others, the discussion was log and tortuous. Article 18, "To see if the Town will vote to purchase and erect a Town Flag pole...and provide for the payment thereof," drew considerable comment from patriots, economizers and wags. In the end, the meeting voted the article down. The voters had less to say about a subsequent proposal to grant the town police force a forty-hour week. Defeat came quickly amid arguments such as "the men have civil service status and security" and "after all, the work isn't particularly arduous."

For the most part, the meeting ran smoothly. A competent moderator managed to hold the speakers fairly close to the point, and kept things moving all the time, despite the efforts of the inevitable petty demagogues, amateur parliamentarians and self styled humorists. There was, of course, occasional bitterness and strong division of opinion. But the senses of the meeting was clear-people saw the town as a business enterprise to be conservatively managed. The spokesman for the Finance Committee summed it up: "We want to keep our feet on the ground and our hands on our pocketbook."

The meeting was adjourned wearily at 11 p.m. with 24 articles on the warrant still unvoted on. A second meeting Tuesday filed to draw a quorum: the town still has over a third of the year's business to complete. This civic apathy and the large agenda are combining to make the traditional town meeting a clumsy instrument of government for the town.