Switzerland has 2706 Communes, divided as to nationality, 1352 German, 945 French, 291 Italian, and 118 in the Grisons, where the Romansch language is used. These Communes as an area of general state administration serve for electoral districts, and as voting districts for the Referendum. Their powers are numerous. They provide for all the public services within their limits, much after the manner of a Canton; they possess a sort of local police, which keeps order day and night in their territory, is present at fairs and markets, having an eye to the public houses, and watches over rural property. Other communal officials maintain the public buildings, roads, fountains, look after the lighting, take measures against fires, superintend schools and religious matters, and supply aid to the poor both in sickness and health. In the small Communes there is only a municipal council, composed of not less than four, elected directly by the members of the Commune in a general assembly (_Gemeinde-Versammlung_), one of whom is made presiding officer and called the _Syndic_ or _Maire_. In the large Communes there are two councils, one legislative and the other executive. A greater or less number of Communes in each Canton form a district, presided over by a _Prefect_ (_Regierungsstatthalter_) who represents the cantonal government. The functions of the communal assemblies extend to: voting the budget, receipts and expenses; the determination and apportionment of taxes; the choice of president and functionaries of every kind, with the right of controlling and dismissing them; administration of property belonging to the Commune; acceptance or modification of all communal regulations; foundation of churches, charitable institutions, hospitals, school-houses and prisons. The assembly or legislative council elects the communal or executive council, and the president of this body is the chief official of the Commune. Every citizen is eligible to the communal council, who is domiciled in the Commune, and a qualified voter in the communal assembly. The qualifications which entitle every citizen in the Commune to vote in the communal assembly require that he must have attained his twentieth year, be _sui juris_, in full enjoyment of the general civil and political rights of the citizen, and be under no temporary civil or criminal disability. Paupers and those who have not paid their taxes cannot vote; those, too, who from intemperate habits have been prohibited from frequenting public houses are not allowed to vote during that probationary period. The principal matters assigned to the supervision of a communal council embrace: the local police, including residents and establishments in the Commune; guardianship, embracing orphans and those not capable of managing their own property (for any improvident citizen may be made a ward, and the control of his property taken away from him); the poor, relieving them as far as possible from