All bills, reports, resolutions, and laws are published in the three languages. The Swiss have been as successful in reconciling the difficulties of diverse dialects in the federal legislature as in the harmonious union of Cantons. It was a serious obstacle in the way of the union, when the legislature of the kingdom of the Netherlands, founded in 1814, had three different languages spoken in its Halls,--Dutch, Flemish, and French. This was considered to foreshadow the disruption in 1830, as it intensified every prejudice and difficulty. The _personnel_ of the Assembly is grave and sedate, dignified and serious. A large majority of the members are past middle age,--men of education, culture, and experience in public life. Many of them have held office first in their Communes and then in their Cantons. It is curious that, in a country where it is hard to find the court-house or a lawyer’s sign, one-fourth of the members of the Assembly report themselves as _advokats_; next in number come merchants, then farmers, physicians, bankers, and professors. One-third are given as incumbents of various other cantonal and communal offices. It is very common for a person to fill at the same time a federal, cantonal, and communal office, where the duties do not conflict and belong to the same general class. This is regarded as both simplifying and cheapening the public service. The very dress of the members, in its severe sombreness and uniformity, bespeaks the stable and serious bent of their minds. Scarcely the change of a cravat would be required for the entire body to appear at a funeral _de rigueur_. The oath administered to the members of the Assembly is calculated to emphasize the high and sacred trust assumed. It runs thus: “I swear, by God the Almighty! to maintain the constitution and the laws of the Confederation, faithfully and truly to guard the unity, power, and honor of the Swiss nation, to defend the independence of the Fatherland, the freedom and rights of the people, and its citizens in the whole, to fulfil conscientiously all duties conferred upon me, as truly, as God blesses me.” In taking this oath the member stands with his right hand uplifted, the thumb and first two fingers extended, indicating the Trinity.