.

2. NON-OFFICIAL PUBLICATIONS.

Baggesen (A.), Den Danske Stat i Aaret 1860. Fremstillet geographisk og statistisk, tillige fra et militairt Standpunkt. 2 vols. 8. Kjöbenhavn, 1860-63. Falbe-Hansen (V.), and Scharling (Wm.), Danmark's Statistik. 8. Kjöbenhavn, 1878-79.

Nationalökönomisk Tidsskrift, 1888. Kjöbenhavn, 1888.

Otté (E. C.), Denmark and Iceland. 8vo. London, 1881.

Petersen (C. P. N.), Love og andre offentlige Kundgjorelser, &c., vedkommende Landvaesenet i Kongeriget Danmark. 8. Kjöbenhavn, 1865.

Trap (J. P.), Statistisk-topographisk Beskrivelse af Kongeriget Danmark.

2nd ed. 4 vols. 8. Kjöbenhavn, 1872-78.

FRANCE.

(RÉPUBLIQUE FRANÇAISE.)

Constitution and Government.

THE present constitution of France, voted by the National Assembly elected in 1871, bears date February 25, 1875, and was partially revised in July 1884 and June 1885. It vests the legislative power in an assembly of two houses, the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, and the executive in a chief magistrate called President of the Republic. The Chamber of Deputies is elected by universal suffrage, under the 'scrutin de liste,' adopted by the National Assembly, June 16, 1885. Each department forms a single circumscription or electoral district, and chooses deputies in the ratio of one deputy to 70,000 inhabitants, foreigners not included. Each department elects at least three deputies; the territory of Belfort only two. The department of the Seine has 38. The total number of deputies is 584; of whom 568 are for France, 6 for Algeria, and 10 for the colonies. In France, in 1885, there were 10,181,095 electors, of whom there voted at the election of that year 7,896,100. To be an elector a man must be twenty-one years old, and be possessed of citizenship, which is obtained by a two years' residence in any one town or canton. Men once convicted of felony or desertion are perpetually disfranchised; while the only requisite for a deputy is to be a citizen and twenty-five years of age. Members of families who have reigned in France are ineligible to the Chamber of Deputies. The Senate is composed of 300 members, of whom 75 originally held their seats for life; but by the Senate Bill of 1884 it was enacted that vacancies among the existing Life Senatorships should be filled up as they arose by the election of ordinary nine-year Senators. In time, therefore, the seats of the 75 Life Senators will have been distributed among the different departments by ballot, and proportionately to departmental population. The Departmental Senatorships are divided into three classes (originally of 75 each), one class retiring by rotation every three years. The election of these Senators is by an indirect process. In the first instance, the communes or municipalities of France, large and small, elect by a majority of their members each one delegate or more, according to population. The delegates, after a lapse of two months, meet together, along with the members of each departmental CouncilGeneral, and the deputies of the department who are ex-officio

Senatorial electors, to choose the Senators. By the revision of 1884, Paris has 30 Senators, and some other large cities 20, 15, or 10 respectively. No other qualification is required for a Senator than to be a Frenchman, at least forty years of age; but by the Act of 1884, all princes of deposed dynasties are precluded from sitting in the Upper House. Generals or Admirals on active service are also debarred. The Senate and Chamber of Deputies assemble every year on the second Tuesday in January, unless a previous summons is made by the President of the Republic, and they must remain in session at least five months out of the twelve.

The Chamber of Deputies is elected for the term of four years. The President is bound to convoke them if the demand is made by one-half of the number of members composing each Chamber. The President can adjourn the Chambers, but the adjournment cannot exceed the term of a month, nor occur more than twice in the same session. The Senate has, conjointly with the Chamber of Deputies, the right of initiating and framing laws. Nevertheless, financial laws must be first presented to and voted by the Chamber of Deputies.

Both the Senators and the Deputies receive payment for their services, the Deputies at 9,000 francs, the Senators at 15,000 francs a year. In the budget for 1889 the expenses connected with the Senate were fixed at 4,600,000 francs, and those of the Chamber of Deputies at 7,457,360 francs, being a total of 12,057,360 francs. The President's 'Dotation' is 600,000 francs, with a further allowance of 600,000 francs for his expenses, forming a total of 48,0007. The President of the Republic is elected, by a majority of votes, by the Senate and Chamber of Deputies, united in National Assembly. He is nominated for seven years, and is re-eligible. The President has the initiative of legislation concurrently with the two Chambers. He promulgates the laws when they have been voted by the two Chambers, and insures the execution of them. He has the right of individual pardon, but cannot proclaim a general amnesty. He disposes of the armed force, and he appoints to all civil and military posts. Every act of the President must be countersigned by a Minister. The President may, with the assent of the Senate, dissolve the Chamber of Deputies before the legal expiration of its term, but in such event the electoral colleges must be summoned for new elections within three months. The ministers as a body are responsible to the Chambers for the general policy of the Government, and individually for their personal acts. The President is responsible only in case of high treason. By a special article, appended to the constitution of 1875, dated July 16, 1875, it is enacted that 'the President of the Republic cannot declare war without the previous sent of the two Chambers.' In the event of a vacancy, the two united

Chambers must proceed immediately to the election of a new President of the Republic.

President of the Republic.-Marie-François Sadi-Carnot, born at Limoges, 1837; studied at the Ecole Polytechnique and the Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées; Under-Secretary of Public Works, 1878; Minister of Public Works, 1880-82; Minister of Finance, 1882, and again 1886. Elected President of the Republic, December 3, 1887.

The last Ministry, appointed by the President of the Republic April 3, 1888, consists of the following members :—

1. President of the Council and Minister of the Interior and of Posts and Telegraphs.-M. Charles Floquet.

2. Minister of Foreign Affairs.-M. René Goblet.

3. Minister of Finance.-M. Peytral.

4. Minister of Public Instruction and the Fine Arts. - M. Edouard Lockroy.

5. Minister of Justice and Public Worship.-M. Ferrouillat. 6. Minister of War.-M. de Freycinet.

7. Minister of Marine and the Colonies.-Vice-Admiral Krantz. 8. Minister of Commerce and Industry.-M. Pierre Legrand. 9. Minister of Public Works.-M. Deluns-Montaud.

10. Minister of Agriculture.-M. Viette.

The following is a list of the Sovereigns and Governments of France, from the accession of the House of Bourbon :—

For judicial purposes France is divided into 26 districts, or Courts of Appeal. Each of these courts has a Bench of nine to twelve Conseillers, or puisne judges, and a President, and three Conseillers are commissioned at least twice a year to go and hold criminal assizes in the chief towns of departments within the juris

diction of the court. The only prisoners tried before the assizes are those accused of crimes (felonies) as distinct from délits (misdemeanours). Persons accused of délits are tried in the Courts of Correctional Police before three judges without jury. There is a Court of Correctional Police in every chief town of an arrondissement. Below the Correctional Courts are the Tribunals of Simple Police (one in each town), which exercise a summary jurisdiction in minor offences. There is besides a juge de paix in every canton, and one in every city quartier. The Court of Cassation, the Supreme Court of Appeal, sits in Paris.

Religion and Education.

The population of France, at the census of December 1881, consisted of 29,201,703 Roman Catholics, being 78.50 per cent. of the total population; of 692,800 Protestants, or 1.8 per cent. of the population, as compared with 584,757 in 1872; of 53,436 Jews, and 7,684,906 persons who declined to make any declaration of religious belief.' This was the first census at which 'non-professants' were registered as such. On former occasions it had been customary to class all who had refused to state what their religion was, or who denied having any religion, as Roman Catholics. The number of persons set down as belonging to 'various creeds' was 33,042.

All religions are equal by law, and any sect which numbers 100,000 adherents is entitled to a grant; but at present only the Roman Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and Mussulmans (Algeria, &c.) have State allowances. In the Budget for 1888 these grants were as follows:

Francs

251,000

43,126,705

1,551,600

180,900

40,000

216,340

45,366,545

There are 17 archbishops and 66 bishops; and of the Roman Catholic Church on January 1, 1885, the secular clergy numbered in all 54,526, besides 10,544 pupils in the ecclesiastical seminaries. The value of the total gifts and legacies made to the Church during the present century up to 1882 is 23.976,733 francs. The Protestants of the Augsburg Confession, or Lutherans, are, in their religious affairs, governed by a General Consistory, while the members of the Reformed Church, or Calvinists, are under a council of administration, the seat of which is at Paris. In 1885 there were 700 Protestant pastors and 57 Jewish rabbis and assistants.