twenty-three years of age; and it leaves all other qualifications to be decided by ulterior legislation. The qualifications provisionally decided upon for the election, early in the year 1888, of the Chamber which will finally determine the electoral franchise are of a very varied character, and need not be given in detail. They will, however, have the effect of greatly enlarging the electorate. With the present population of about four millions there were, under the unrevised Constitution, about 130,000 electors for the second Chamber of the States-General and for the Provincial States, with about 220,000 for the Communal Councils. It is estimated that under the provisional franchise the number of electors will be increased to about 350,000, all of whom will have a vote for the Parliamentary, the Provincial, and the Communal elections, the franchise being the same for all three.

PERSIA.

The Absolute Monarchy of Persia (capital, Teheran) occupies a compact territory between the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf. It is also bounded on the north by Russia, on the west by Turkey, and on the east by Baluchistan and Afghanistan.

Area, 628,000 square miles. Population, about 7,650,000 (in 1881). Of these 6,860,600 were computed as belonging to the prevalent Shiah category of Mahomedans, and 700,000 were Sunnis, or Turkish-Mahomedans. There were also 43,000 Armenians, besides Nestorians, Parsees, and Jews.

In Persia, as in other States where the monarchs contract polygamous marriages, with or without formal distinctions amongst the wives, the succession to the throne.

is not hereditary through the eldest male descendants. In Turkey there is the recognized rule of seniority, including collateral branches. In Persia, Siam, and elsewhere, there is the right of selection, vested in the monarch or the dynastic family.

The Shah (Shah-in-Shah) governs through individual ministers, eight or ten in number, who control the Departments of War, Foreign Affairs, Justice, Customs, Publie Domains, the Mint, Public Instruction, Mines, Telegraphs, Posts, the Press, Arts, and Trade. The Minister of War is now (1887) Kamram Mirza, the Shah's third son.

There are seven Governors of Provinces, three of whom are sons of the Shah. Governor of Azerbaidjan-Mouzaffer ed-Din, heir apparent. Governor of Ispahan, Khonsar, Yezd, Irak, Burudjird, Luristan, Arabistan, Kurdistan, Bachtiar, Chunsar-Massoud Mirza, the Zil-es-Sultan, second son of the Shah. Governor of Teheran, Gilan, Mazenderan, Astrabad, Kachan, Goum, Sareh, Malajir, Nehavend, Serend, Tusirkan, Firuskuh-Kamran Mirza. The other four provinces, making twenty-seven in all, are Khorassan, Khamseh, Kaswin, and Hamadan.

The Governors of Ispahan and Teheran appoint lieutenant-governors for the separate provinces, and kalantars, or magistrates, of the towns. They are assisted by vizirs and other officers. The sheiks of the Arab tribes are answerable to the Governors for the contributions of their tribes to the public treasury.

The organization of the priesthood is much the same as in Turkey. The Sheik-ul-Islam is an officer of State; and under him are the ulema, the mufti, and the ordinary priests, or moullahs. The Imam is also a State officer. A higher order of the muftis are called mouchtahids, or

chief-priests, of whom there is one or more in every town, learned in the interpretation of the law.

Education, as in the more settled provinces of Turkey, is fairly provided for by the State. Under the departments of Public Instruction and Art there are literary colleges, elementary schools, military and technical schools.

The art of government in Persia, as in Turkey, consists of little more than the collection of taxes and the exaction of obedience to the laws of the Koran. The customs are farmed out, and the gross amount levied is something over £300,000. The total amount of the Revenue and Expenditure is not made public.

PORTUGAL.

The Constitutional Kingdom of Portugal (capital, Lisbon) occupies the western extremity of the Iberian peninsula of Europe, the coast extending between the mouths of the Minho and Guadiana rivers. The boundary dividing Portugal from Spain (which see) is only at its extremities. natural.

The Area and Population are indicated in the following table:

GOVERNMENT.

The connection with Spain between 1580 and 1640 was very disastrous for Portugal. She recovered her independence only to find that some of her best colonies had been taken from the hands of their temporary guardian; and she recovered it also to realize that her former elasticity and instincts of government were gone. The momentary revival which followed the liberation of 1640 encouraged the Estates to affirm the authority of the old laws of Lamego, and to summon the Cortes; but the effort was not long sustained. During a century and a half the Cortes rarely met. In 1820, after a prolonged absence of King John VI. in Brazil, the Portuguese people took affairs into their own hands, and proclaimed a Constitution on the basis of the Spanish project of 1812. The King accepted this charter in 1821, but withdrew his consent in 1824, and attempted to satisfy his subjects with the Lamego laws. On his death, two years later, his son, Pedro IV., Emperor of Brazil, assumed the crown, granted a "Carta Constitucional," and abdicated in favour of his daughter Maria. Usurpation, civil war, and numerous insurrections followed; but the Charter of 1826, which was based on the Constitution of Brazil (see p. 400) remains the fundamental law of the country. It was revised in 1852, and again in 1878 and 1885.

The Charter sets out with the following declarations :— "The Kingdom of Portugal is the political association of all Portuguese citizens. They constitute a free and independent nation. The territory of the Kingdom of Portugal and of the Algarves includes-1. In Europe-the Kingdom of Portugal, which is composed of the provinces of Minho,

of Tras-os-Montes, Beira, Estremadura, Alem-Tejo, the kingdom of Algarve and the adjacent isles, Madeira, Porto-Santo, and the Azores. 2. In West Africa-Bissan and Cacheu; on the Mina coast, Fort St. John de Ajuda, Angola, Benguela, and its dependencies, Molembo, the Cape Verd Islands, the Islands of St. Thomas, del Principe, and their dependencies; on the eastern coast, Mozambique, Rio de Senna, Sofalla, Inhambane, Quelimane, and the islands of Cape Delgado. 3. In Asia-Salsete, Bardez, Goa, Damao, Diu, the establishments of Macao and of the isles of Solor and Timor. The nation does not abandon its rights over any other territory in these three parts of the world, though it may not be comprised in the foregoing article. The government of the nation is monarchical, hereditary, and representative."

The Cortes are made up of the Chamber of Peers and the Chamber of Deputies. With respect to the former we are witnessing at this moment in Portugal the progress of an experiment which has been suggested in other countries, but not actually carried out in practice. The revision of 1878 authorized the King to appoint life peers; the revision of 1885 provided for the eventual conversion of a hereditary into a representative upper Chamber. It was enacted in 1878 that life peers might be created by the King amongst twenty different categories, corresponding in some measure with the categories named in the Italian Constitution, and more than a hundred have been created in virtue of this law. By the Act of 1885 the life peers nominated by the Crown are to be reduced to a hundred, the right of nomination being for the present reduced to one after every third vacancy. Fifty additional life peers are selected from the same categories-5 by the University of Coimbra and