From the age of thirty-three to the completion of the military age, only one-half of the tax is exacted. The Federal Assembly has the right to increase the tax to double the amount for those years in which the greater part of the _Élite_ troops are called into service. The military tax for Swiss citizens residing abroad is calculated every year by special rolls, and the persons advised by the officials of the Canton of their birth, if their address be known, otherwise by public advertisement. The tax for exemption is paid in the Canton where the tax-payer is domiciled when the rolls are prepared. Parents are responsible for the payment of the tax for their minor sons, and for those sons who, though of age, remain a part of the household. The period for prescription is five years for tax-payers present in the country, and ten years for those absent from the country. The Cantons are charged with making out the annual rolls and collecting the tax. By the end of January following the year of the tax the Cantons must remit to the proper federal official the half of the gross product collected. A portion of this is assigned by the Federal Assembly to the fund for military pensions. In each Canton there is a tribunal to pass upon appeals on the correctness of the rolls of tax-payers. All disputes arising as to the tax are referred to and decided by the Federal Council. With a view of insuring a uniform application of the law of military service, the Confederation reserves supreme supervision; and the ultimate decision upon all questions arising out of the operation of it, and likewise upon decrees relating to the imposition and collection of the tax, rests with it. The estimated receipts from this tax for the share of the Confederation are placed in the budget for 1889 at 1,330,000 francs. An eminent Swiss publicist, Dr. Dubs, in criticising this tax-law, asserts “that in many points it is equally irrational, and, in the construction of its details, leads moreover to further absurdities of all kinds, of which undoubtedly the claiming to tax those in foreign countries and the taxation of the heir’s possible expectations form the highest point.” He might have added that this tax, so far as levied upon incomes of persons liable to military service but exempted therefrom by reason of disability or other cause, partakes rather of the character of a law to raise revenue than as providing a penalty for the non-performance of military service. The failure to render such service on the part of one enjoying a specified income is not more heavily punished than the failure of one with less or no income. The operation of this tax has caused much complaint on the part of citizens of the United States “established” in Switzerland. Nearly all of the European states have concluded treaties with Switzerland, since the enactment of this “military tax-law,” bringing themselves within the conditions it prescribes for