of “collective ownership,” it is a right of “common ownership.” The domain does not belong to a collection of individuals, it belongs to a perpetual corporation. The individual has no share in the landed property, but merely a right to a proportional part of the produce. Then in some are the old burghers and the new burghers. The former are the lineal descendants of those who were burghers for hundreds of years, and they only own these lands in common; the latter are those, or the descendants of those, who, having come in from other Cantons or Communes, settled in the place, and have no rights of any kind in the common land. The land may be common to all the old burghers of a Commune equally; it is then said to belong to the Commune; or it may belong to sections of the old burghers, as, for instance, to those who reside in a particular class of families; and again these may hold it either simply for their own use or for the promotion of some defined object. The right of common, with rare exception, cannot be assigned, transferred, or let, except to Communers; it is a right inherent in the person. As a rule, the right belongs to every separate couple of hereditary usufructuaries, who have had “fire and light” within the Commune during the year or at some fixed date. The girls and young men therefore very commonly keep their own little _ménage_, even though they have to go to their daily work at other people’s houses; and if they have remained the whole week away from their home, they come back on Sunday evening to make “fire and light” in their habitations. A young man when he marries can claim the right; this rule is extended to a widow or orphans living together, and sometimes to every son who attains the age of twenty-five, provided he lives in a separate house. Natural children, whose parentage is known, may also claim their share. To the communer, his native soil is a veritable _alma parens_, a good foster-mother. He has a share in it by virtue of a personal inalienable right, which no one can dispute, and which the lapse of centuries has consecrated. It does not simply give its members abstract rights; it procures them also in some measure the means of existence. It provides a valuable resource for indigent families, and preserves them at least from the last extremity of distress. It supplies the expenses of the school, the church, the police, and the roads, besides securing to its members the enjoyment of property. In a few Communes the wine and bread, which is the fruit of their joint labor, forms the basis of an annual banquet, at which all the members of the Commune take part, and is known as the _Gemeinde-trinket_.