mation, who were appointed by the Minister of that department on
the recommendation of his assistant chiefs, of whom there was one in
every district who was elected by the people after having passed a
successful examination showing their ability to do the work required of
them.

Every person appointed to office, as well as those elected by the
people, had to be examined physically, mentally and morally in the same
manner as those applying for a license to practice a profession or
desiring to marry. All were placed on the same footing. The law for
divorce was enforced by the Department of Health, as doctors were, from
their knowledge of human frailty, the best judges to decide whether a
man and woman should live together in the married state or be
separated, and while the law provided for a compulsory decree of
divorce for adultery, which was a felony, it also allowed divorce for
incompatibility of temperament. A court of six Government physicians,
three males and three females, heard all divorce cases in every
district.

The Minister of Health gave me the reasons why the marriage law was
passed fixing twenty-one years of age as the time when young men and
women could marry. He said it was done to allow the youths of both
sexes to become well acquainted with one another before being united in
marriage, and also to be well trained in useful callings, so that both
parties to the marriage contract would be able to assist each other,
for many an innocent young girl had ruined her life by marrying a man
at an age when she was ignorant of the duties of wifehood and
motherhood, "but by keeping our boys and girls in training schools
until they are eighteen and then teaching them trades in the Army until
they are twenty-one years of age we fit them for the duties of life."

CHAPTER XVIII.

A VISIT TO THE MINISTER OF STATE.

Before returning to the United States of America I called on the
Minister of State, who is also the presiding officer of the Parliament,
and told him that I would regard it as a great favor if he would tell
me how such changes had taken place in the Government of his country,
"for," said I, "from what I read about your Government when I was a boy
it was an absolute monarchy, and one man's will was the law of the
land."

"You have the key to the problem in that statement," he replied, "for I
am free to confess that it would have taken centuries to have brought
about our present system of government