The Rumanian constitution grants all those rights and privileges usually set forth in documents of that kind. The right of meeting is guaranteed; there is liberty of the press; the municipal officers and mayors are elected, but the Prince may intervene in the case of towns inhabited by more than a thousand families; the punishment of death is abolished, except in time of war; and education is free and compulsory “wherever there are schools.” There is liberty of religion, though there is a State Church, and Christians alone can be naturalised. No marriage is legal unless it has been consecrated by a priest. The Rumanian Church, as far as dogmas are concerned, is that of the Greeks, but it is altogether independent of the Greek patriarch residing at Constantinople, and is governed by its own Synod. Most of the monasteries have been secularised. The country is divided into four judicial districts, each having a court of appeal, whilst a supreme court sits at Bucharest. The French codes, slightly modified, were introduced in 1865. The army is partly modelled upon that of Prussia. All citizens are called upon to serve sixteen years, eight of which are passed in the standing army or its reserve, and eight in the militia. The National Guard includes all men up to fifty not belonging to either of the other categories. By calling out all its men, Rumania can easily send an army of 100,000 men into the field. There are likewise a few gunboats on the Danube. The finances of Rumania are in a more satisfactory condition than those of most other states of Europe. The Government has certainly been living upon loans, for which eight per cent. has to be paid, and nearly the whole of the annual income is spent upon the payment of interest, the army, and the revenue services. The credit of Rumania is, however, good, for the loans are secured upon vast domains, the property of the secularised monasteries, several thousand acres of which are sold every year. The sale of salt and the manufacture of tobacco are Government monopolies.[53] Rumania is divided for administrative purposes into 33 departments and 164 districts, or _plasi_. There are 62 towns and 3,020 rural communes. {172} [Illustration] SERVIA AND MONTENEGRO.[54] SERVIA. Servia, like Rumania, was until recently a semi-independent state, paying a tribute of £25,000 a year to the Porte, and submitting to the presence of a Turkish garrison at Mali-Zvornik, on the Bosnian frontier. But even these vestiges of ancient oppression irritated the national pride to an inconceivable degree, and the moment when a blow might be struck on behalf of Servia and the neighbouring countries inhabited by Slavs still groaning under the Turkish yoke was looked forward to with impatience. The blow has been struck, and were it not for the support extended to it by the great powers, Servia would ere this have ceased to exist as a semi-independent state.