roportion of 2 to every 20,000 inhabitants, is convoked to elect a
new king, to appoint a regency, to sanction a change in the constitution,
or to ratify an alteration in the boundaries of the kingdom. The executive
is entrusted to a cabinet of eight members--the ministers of foreign
affairs and religion, finance, justice, public works, the interior,
commerce and agriculture, education and war. Local administration, which is
organized on the Belgian model, is under the control of the minister of the
interior. The country is divided into twenty-two departments (_okr[)u]g_,
pl. _okr[)u]zi_), each administered by a prefect (_upravitel_), assisted by
a departmental council, and eighty-four sub-prefectures (_okolia_), each
under a sub-prefect (_okoliiski natchalnik_). The number of these
functionaries is excessive. The four principal towns have each in addition
a prefect of police (_gradonatchalnik_) and one or more commissaries
(_pristav_). The gendarmery numbers about 4000 men, or 1 to 825 of the
inhabitants. The prefects and sub-prefects have replaced the Turkish
_mutessarifs_ and _kaimakams_; but the system of municipal government, left
untouched by the Turks, descends from primitive times. Every commune
(_obshtina_), urban or rural, has its _kmet_, or mayor, and council; the
commune is bound to maintain its primary schools, a public library or
reading-room, &c.; the kmet possesses certain magisterial powers, and in
the rural districts he collects the taxes. Each village, as a rule, forms a
separate commune, but occasionally two or more villages are grouped
together.

_Justice._--The civil and penal codes are, for the most part, based on the
Ottoman law. While the principality formed a portion of the Turkish empire,
the privileges of the capitulations were guaranteed to foreign subjects
(Berlin Treaty, Art. viii.). The lowest civil and criminal court is that of
the village kmet, whose jurisdiction is confined to the limits of the
commune; no corresponding tribunal exists in the towns. Each sub-prefecture
and town has a justice of the peace--in some cases two or more; the number
of these officials is 130. Next follows the departmental tribunal or court
of first instance, which is competent to pronounce sentences of death,
penal servitude and deprivation of civil rights; in specified criminal
cases the judges are aided by three assessors chosen by lot from an
annually prepared panel of forty-eight persons. Three courts of ap