of citizens assembled like one great united family; they lived, they consulted, they transacted business together, and together repaired for public debate or religious devotion, for manly amusement, or philosophical speculation, to the forum or the temple, the circus or the portico. Virtuous emulation was roused, the force of public opinion increased, and the importance of the individual in the general scale visibly exalted. The Landsgemeinde is self-government in its noblest reach and simplest form, where every man is legislator, judge, and executive. What rare simplicity! No wrangling after power, no intrigue after place, no lust for fame; one thought alone, to live just as their fathers did, in perfect liberty, and fearing none but God. These simple democracies in the Cantons of Switzerland, which have existed for a thousand years, little touched by the stream of European life, deserve our respect for their long history that is rich in many episodes, and for the peaceful and happy existence of their people. They furnish us with a bit of realistic political education, a successful working example of the purest democracy in the world. It throbs with a vital sense of government at first hands; every citizen a very live political entity, and the sense of government very individual. Obstinately conservative, with a profound disbelief in theory, they remind one of the ox, which walks straightforward with a slow, heavy, and firm tread. They take no stock in the fallacy, that a new system, political or social, can be ordered like a new suit of clothes, and would as soon think of ordering a new suit of flesh and skin. With sincere satisfaction and pride, they are given to exclaim, “Thanks to our sublime resistance to innovations; thanks to the cold sluggishness of our national character, we still bear the stamp of our forefathers:” “So have old customs there, from sire to son, Been handed down unchanging and unchanged; Nor will they brook to swerve or turn aside From the fixed, even tenor of their life.” CHAPTER VIII. THE REFERENDUM. The student of politics may always look with advantage to Switzerland for the latest forms and results of democratic experiments. Federal laws, decrees, and resolutions require the concurrence of both branches of the Federal Assembly; but the process does not always end at that point. Such concurrence is not adequate in all cases for them to come into force. Article 89 of the constitution declares that “federal laws are submitted to the people for adoption or rejection on the demand of 30,000 active citizens, or eight Cantons; the same is the case with federal decrees of a general bearing, and not of an urgent character.”