with the internal affairs of either Catholic or Protestant Churches. Full religious liberty is granted by the Constitution, and part of the income of the ministers of all denominations is paid from the national treassury. Instruction. There are four universities in the kingdom, three of them with four "facultés," or branches of study, and one Louvain, nursery of the clergy, with five; Ghent and Liège are State universities, Brussels and Louvain free. Attached to the universities are various special schools of engineering, arts, manufactures, mining, Besides the above public schools there are many private or free schools-about 80 colleges, 65 middle-class schools for boys, 150 institutions for girls, besides many infant, primary, and adult schools, mostly under ecclesiastical care.

etc.

Justice.-Judges are appointed for life by the King from lists prepared by the Senate and by the Court. There is one Court of Cassation for the whole kingdom. There are three Courts of Appeal, and there are Assize Courts for criminal cases. The country is divided into 26 judicial arrondissements or districts, in each of which is a Court of first instance. In each canton there is a justice of the peace, a police court, and a judge of the peace; there are 216 such cantons. There are, besides, special military, commercial, and other tribunals. There is trial by jury in all criminal and political cases. The Gendarmerie (2,586) and the Garde Civique are utilized for the maintenance of internal order.

BRAZIL.

In 1807 the royal family of Portugal fled to Brazil; in 1815 the colony was declared a kingdom"; and the Portuguese Court having returned to Europe in 1821, a National Congress assembled at Rio de Janeiro, and on May 13, 1822, Dom Pedro, eldest son of King João VI. of Portugal, was chosen " Perpetual Defender" of Brazil. He proclaimed the independence of the country on September 7, 1822, and was chosen "Constitutional Emperor and Perpetual Defender" on October 12 following. In 1831 he abdicated the crown in favor of his only son, Dom Pedro II., who reigned as Emperor until November 15, 1889, when by a revolution he was dethroned, and he and his family exiled, and Brazil declared a Republic under the title of the United States of Brazil.

General Deodoro Fonseca was the first President. On November 23, 1891, he resigned, and Vice-President Peixoto took his place. Dissatisfaction, occasioned principally by military interference in the States, led to a rising in Rio Grande do Sul, and to a naval revolt in the Bay of Rio de Janeiro. The rising in the South terminated in August, 1895, and the naval revolt was suppressed in March, 1894.

According to the constitution adopted by the National Congress in February, 1891, the Brazilian nation is constituted as the United States of Brazil Each of the old Provinces forms a State, administered at its own expense without interference from the Federal Government save for defense, for the maintenance of order, and for the execution of the Federal laws. Fiscal arrangements in such matters as import duties, stamps, rates of postage, and bank note circulation belong to the Union;

but export duties are the property of the various States.

The legislative authority is exercised by the National Congress with the sanction of the President of the Republic. Congress consists of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. It meets annually on the 3d of May, without being convoked, unless another day be fixed by law, and sits four months, but may be prorogued or convoked extraordinarily. No member of Congress, after his election, can contract with the executive power or accept any commission or paid office, except such as are diplomatic or military or imposed by law. lf, in ordinary circumstances, the acceptance of diplomatic or military office would cause the loss of the legislative services of a member, the permission of the Chamber is required. Nor can any member of Congress take part in the administration of any company which receives a subsidy from the Federal Government. Deputies and Senators are paid, and neither can be Ministers of State, and retain at the same time their seats in Congress. Deputies must have been Brazilian citizens for four years. Senators must be over thirty-five years of age and must have been citizens for six years.

The Chamber of Deputies consists of 212 members elected for three years by direct vote (providing for the representation of the minority), in a proportion not greater than one to every 70,000 of population as shown by a decennial census, but so that no State will have less than four representatives. It has the initiative in legislation relating to taxation.

Senators, 63 in number, are chosen by direct vote, three for each state, and for the Federal district, for nine years, and the Senate is renewed to the extent of one third every three years. The Vice-President of the Republic is President of the Senate.

The executive authority is exercised by the President of the Republic. He must be a native of Brazil, over thirty-five years of age. His term of office is four years, and he is not eligible for the succeeding term. The President and the Vice-President are elected by the people directly, by an absolute majority of votes. The election is held on the 1st of March in the last year of each presidential period in accordance with forms prescribed by law. No candidate must be related by blood or marriage, in the first or second degree, to the actual President or Vice-President, or to either who has ceased to be so within six months.

The President has the nomination and dismissal of ministers, supreme command of the army and navy, and, within certain limits, the

Local Government.- For the purposes of local government the Republic is divided into Provinces, presided over by Intendents; and the Provinces into Departments, with Gobernadores as chief officers. The Departments constitute one or more municipal districts each with a council or municipality of 9 members, inhabitants popularly elected for three years. The police of Santiago and of the capitals of departments is organized and regulated by the President of the Republic at Religion. The Roman Catholic religion is maintained by the State, but according to the Constitution all religions are respected and protected. There is one archbishop and three bishops. For 1898 the amount of subsidies to the clergy and for building and other purposes was 578,888 pesos. Civil marriage is the only form acknowledged by law. Instruction.-Education is gratuitous and at the cost of the State, but is not compulsory. It is divided into superior or professional, medium or secondary, and primary or elementary instruction. Professional and secondary instruction is provided in the University and the National Institute of Santiago, and in the lyceums and colleges established in the capitals of provinces, and in some departments. In the University the branches included are law, physical and mathematical sciences, medicine, and fine arts. The number of students inscribed for the study of these branches in 1897 was 774. The number of students at the National Institute in 1897 was 1,278. There are 2 lyceums for girls in Santiago maintained by Government. There are, besides, provincial colleges, normal, agricultural, and other special schools. At the seats of the bishops there are seminaries under ecclesiastics where instruction is given similar to that in the Government colleges. There were, in 1897, 1,321 public primary schools, with 109,058 pupils, and an average attendance of 65,507, and 2,268 teachers. There were also 411 private schools, with an attendance of 18,052. The National Library contains over 86,000 volumes of printed books, and 24.048 manuscripts. Other educational institutions are the Pedagogic Institute, the National Conservatory of Music, the National Observatory, School of Arts and Trades, Institute for Deaf Mutes, and public museums. In 1897 the cost of higher instruction to the State was 2,000,000 pesos; the cost of maintaining the elementary schools was 1,920,200 pesos: and the total cost of instruction supplied by the State, including buildings, pensions, books, etc., in 1897, was 5,633,021 pesos. Justice. There are, in addition to a High Court of Justice in the capital, six Courts of Appeal, Courts of First Instance in the departmental capitals, and subordinate courts in the districts.

the charge of the national treasury.

CHINA.

The laws of the Chinese Empire are laid down in the Ta-ts'ing-hwei-tien, or "Collected Regulations of the Ts'ing dynasty," which prescribe the government of the State to be based upon the government of the family.

The supreme direction of the Empire is vested in the Chün Chi Ch'u, the Privy Council, or Grand Council. The administration is under the supreme direction of the Nei-ko or Cabinet, comprising four members, two of Manchu and two of Chinese origin, besides two assistants from the Han-lin, or Great Col

and in the sacred books of Confucius. These members are denominated "Ta-hsio-shih," or Ministers of State. Under their orders are the Ch'i-pu, or seven boards of government, each of which is presided over by a Manchu and a Chinese. These boards are: (1) the board of civil appointments, which takes cognizance of the conduct and administration of all civil officers; (2) the board of revenues, regulating all financial affairs; (3) the board of rites and ceremonies, which enforces the laws and customs to be observed by the people; (4) the military board; (5) the board of public works; (6) the high tribunal of criminal jurisdiction; and (7) the admiralty board at Tientsin, established in 1885.

Independent of the Government, and theoretically above the central administration, is the Tu-ch-a-yuen, or board of public censors. It consists of from 40 to 50 members, under two presidents, the one of Manchu and the other of Chinese birth. By the ancient custom of the Empire, all the members of this board are privileged to present any remonstrance to the sovereign. One censor must be present at the meetings of each of the Government boards.

The Tsungli Yamên, or Foreign Office, was created by a decree of January 19, 1861, and comprises among its members all those of the Council of State and six other officials of the highest rank. It controls not merely the matters with foreign nations, but also those institutions in which foreigners form part of the working staff, such as the Maritime Customs, and Peking University.

The present sovereign, reigning under the style of Kwangsii, is the ninth Emperor of China of the Manchu dynasty of Ts'ing, which overthrew the native dynasty of Ming, in the year 1644. There exists no law of hereditary succession to the throne, but it is left to each sovereign to appoint his successor from among the members of his family of a younger generation than his own. The late Emperor, dying suddenly in the eighteenth year of his age, did not designate a successor, and it was in consequence of arrangements directed by the Empress Dowager, widow of the Emperor HienFêng, predecessor and father of T'ung-chi, in concert with Prince Ch'un, that the infant son of the latter was made the nominal occupant of the throne. Having become of age the young Emperor nominally assumed government in March, 1887. In February, 1889, he undertook the full control, but on September 22, 1898, an Imperial edict was issued

of examination, and schools for the propagation of The Tung Wên Kwan," or College of Foreign KnowlWestern science and literature are now on the increase. edge, at Peking, is a Government institution, where the English, French, German, Japanese, and Russian languages, and mathematics, chemistry, physiology, etc., fessors, while the Chinese education of the pupils is are taught by European, Japanese, and American proentrusted to Chinese teachers. There are, besides, colleges at Shanghai and other ports, where the English language and lower branches of Western science schools in connection with the different arsenals at established naval and military colleges and torpedo Tientsin, Nanking, Shanghai, and Foochow, in which foreign instructors are engaged to teach such young Chinese as intend to make their career in the army or sides Western languages and literature. Ten Chinese navy of their country Western modes of warfare, benewspapers are published at Shanghai, and the success they have achieved has led to the establishment of others at some of the other treaty ports.

numerous Catholic and Protestant mission schools and

Religion. Three religions are acknowledged by the Chinese as indigenous and adopted; viz., Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism.

The Emperor is considered the sole high priest of the Empire, and can alone, with his immediate representatives and ministers, perform the great religious ceremonies. No ecclesiastical hierarchy is maintained at the public expense, nor any priesthood attached to the Confucian religion. The Confucian is the State religion, if the respect paid to the memory of the great teacher can be called religion at all. But distinct and totally separate from the stated periodic observances of respect offered to the memory of Confucius as the Holy Man of old, and totally unconnected therewith, there is the distinct worship of Heaven (t'ien), in which the Emperor, as the “sole high priest," worships and sacrifices to "Heaven" every year at the time of the winter solstice, at the Altar of Heaven in Peking. With the exception of the practice of ancestral worship, which is everywhere observed throughout the Empire, and was fully commended by Confucius, Confucianism has little outward ceremonial. The study and contemplation and attempted performance of the moral precepts of the ancients constitute the duties of a Confucianist. Buddhism and Taoism present a very gorgeous and elaborate ritual in China, Taoism-originally a pure philos ophy-having abjectly copied Buddhist ceremonial on the arrival of Buddhism 1.800 years ago. Large numbers of the Chinese in Middle and Southern China fess and practice all three religions. The bulk of the people, however, are Buddhists. There are probably about thirty million Mahometans, chiefly in the northeast and southwest. Roman Catholicisin has long had a footing in China, and is estimated to have about 1, 000,000 adherents, with 25 bishoprics besides those of Manchuria, Tibet, Mongolia, and Corea. Other Christian societies have stations in many parts of the country, the number of Protestant adherents being estimated at 50,000. Most of the aboriginal hill tribes are still nature worshipers, and ethnically are distinct from the prevailing Mongoloid population. Instruction. Education of a certain type is very general, but still there are vast masses of adult countrymen in China who can neither read nor write. There

pro

is a special literary class who alone know the literature of their country, to the study of which they devote their lives. There are boarding schools and day schools for boys and young men, the latter being held in the guilds, and in all the important cities there are colleges entrance halls of temples and in the spare chambers of for training candidates for degrees. Examinations, mainly confined to moral philosophy and literature, are held in the prefectorial cities of each province twice in three years for the lower degree necessary as a passport to the public service, but of the six or seven thousand candidates who come forward, not more than sixty can be admitted to the degree by the Literary Chancellor. For the higher degree, examinations are held in each provincial capital once in three years, and the successful candidates are subjected to a third and fourth examination, those who finally emerge being divided into four classes to wait for appointments to offices of different grades. There are, however, other means (e.g. military service) by which such appointments may be obtained. In 1887, for the first time, mathematics were admitted with the Chinese classics among the subjects

FRANCE.

Since the overthrow of Napoleon III., on September 4, 1870, France has been under a Republican form of government, confirmed on February 25, and June 16, 1875, by an organic law (Constitution Wallon), which has been partially modified in June, 1879, August, 1884, June, 1885, and July, 1889. It vests the legislative power in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, and the executive in the President of the Republic and the Ministry.

The President is elected for seven years, by a majority of votes, by the Senate and Chamber of Deputies united in a National Assembly, or Congress. He promulgates the laws voted by both Chambers, and ensures their execution. He selects a Ministry from the Chamber, appoints to all civil and military posts, has the right of individual pardon, and is responsible only in case of high treason. The President concludes treaties with foreign Powers, but cannot declare war without the previous assent of both Chambers. Every act of the President has to be countersigned by a Minister.

With the consent of the Senate he can dissolve the Chamber of Deputies. In case of vacancy, the two Chambers united immediately elect a new President.

Each

Minister of Finance.

Minister of Foreign Affairs.