into 508 electoral districts, each entitled to choose one
deputy. By a law of June 28, 1892, there were introduced various
reforms in the control and supervision of elections, and by another of
July 11, 1894, new provisions were established for the revision of
electoral and registration lists. Finally, March 28, 1895, there was
promulgated an elaborate royal decree whereby the entire body of
electoral laws enacted since the establishment of constitutional
government, and at the time continuing in operation, was co-ordinated
afresh. The existing system was not altered fundamentally, although
the method of making up the voting-lists was changed, with the result
that the number of electors was somewhat diminished.

*414. The Franchise To-day.*--The Italian voter to-day must possess the
following qualifications: (1) Italian citizenship; (2) age of
twenty-one, or over; (3) ability to read and write; and (4) successful
passage of examinations in the subjects comprised in the course of
compulsory elementary education. The last-mentioned qualification is
not, however, required of officials, graduates of colleges, professional
men, persons who have served two years in the army, citizens who pay a
direct tax annually of not less than nineteen lire eighty (p. 377)
centesimi, those who pay an agricultural rental of 500 lire, those who
pay house rent of from 150 lire in communes of 2,500 people to 400
lire in communes of over 150,000, and certain less important classes.
So serious at all times has seemed the menace of illiteracy in Italy
that the establishment of manhood suffrage has but rarely been
proposed. Under the existing system the extension of education carries
with it automatically the expansion of the franchise, though the
obstacles to universal education are still so formidable that the
democratizing of the state proceeds but slowly.[551] In 1904 the
number of enrolled electors was 2,541,327--29 per cent of the male
population over twenty-one years of age, and 7.67 per cent of the total
population--exclusive of 26,056 electors temporarily disfranchised by
reason of being engaged in active military service. At the elections
of November, 1904, the number of qualified electors who voted was
1,593,886, or but 62.7 per cent of those who possessed the privilege.
The proportion of registered electors who actually vote is kept down
by the prosaic character of Italian electoral campaigns, by the
influence of the papal _No