of happiness ought to be as sacred from wanton encroachment and disturbance as another; and that visible property is not the only thing which can be purloined or invaded. These evils are being submitted to, without any strenuous effort to remove them, as if they were not a mere excrescence, but formed an integral or essential part of the system, which they deform and debase. There can scarcely be said to be any party alignments in the Swiss Assembly. It is comparatively free from the “offensive partisanship,” “pernicious activity,” and system of party organization and activity which flourish in the United States with exuberant and, in some respects, ominous vigor. While nominally three political divisions exist in the Swiss Assembly, the Right, Centre, and Left, the accepted general classification reduces them to two, Radicals and Conservatives. The main line of separation is the same perplexing issue running through all political history, the rivalry between the state and nation, one seeking to minimize, the other to magnify the sphere of the central government. The Radicals are those who seek to give the broadest interpretation to the constitution, so as to enlarge the field of federal authority. The Conservatives are jealous of every encroachment upon the traditional prerogative of the Cantons, and desire to restrict and confine the limits of federal action. The Radicals are the most numerous, commanding an absolute majority in both the National Council and the Council of States. Within these two broad divisions there are many different shades that separate on questions of a social, religious, and economic character. Then these grand and subdivisions have an entirely different significance, as applied to federal or cantonal questions; a Radical as to the one, may be a Conservative as to the other. The Radical and Conservative of the Canton of Vaud is by no means the same as the Radical and Conservative of the Cantons of Zurich and Aargau; the Radical of Geneva is very different from the Radical of St. Gallen. The two parties are not distinguished from each other by any systematic respect or disrespect for cantonal independence. So the purely political question between privilege on one side and the sovereignty of the people on the other is one of subordinate moment; the former does not find expression in any party formula. It is an error to estimate the character and tendencies of the Swiss parties by the names which they bear, Radical and Conservative, in the light of the footing these names have obtained in every language in Europe, and the strong feelings of esteem or hatred associated with them. As such they are nowise fully correct designations of the political divisions, prominently opposed in Switzerland, and of the points at issue between them. It is not true that the Swiss Radical desires over-centralization to the extent of unitary government; but, with the Conservative, holds to the great