SWEDEN AND NORWAY, KING OF. 



SWITZERLAND. 



751 



Prince Oscar, in uncovering the monument, 

 delivered a spirited speech. The President of 

 the Storthing also spoke, and the toast was 

 drank of " God save the King, the Fatherland, 

 and Sister Countries." The festival was wit- 

 nessed by about 20,000 spectators. 



SWEDEN AND NORWAY, Louis EUGENE, 

 crowned KARL XV., King of; born in Stock- 

 holm, May 3, 1826 ; died at Malmo, Septem- 

 ber 18, 1872. He was the son of Oscar I. and 

 his Queen Josephine, daughter of Prince Eu- 

 gene of Leuchtenberg, and was, on account of 

 the prolonged illness of his father, appointed 

 Prince Regent of Sweden and Norway, by 

 royal decree, September 25, 1857. Having 

 succeeded to the throne of the two countries 

 on the death of his father, July 8, 1859, he 

 was crowned at Stockholm, for Sweden, on 

 the 3d of May, 1860, and at Drontheim, for 

 Norway, on the 5th of August, 1860. He was 

 a man of cultivated tastes and decided literary 

 talents. About three years previous to his 

 death, he published a volume of poems. 



His reign was signalized by efforts at admin- 

 istrative reorganization, both socially and polit- 

 ically. The principal act of reform, of which 

 he is entitled to the credit, was introduced in 

 1866, and related to the national representation 

 of Sweden. In place of four Chambers respond- 

 ing to the four classes of the nobility, the clergy, 

 the bourgeoisie, and the peasantry, there, were 

 two Chambers established, an Upper and Lower. 

 The first was elected by the provincial assem- 

 blies, the second by the people. The nobility 

 and clergy lost the privileges which they pre- 

 viously held as a matter of right. By an ap- 

 plication of the principle of civil equality, an 

 assembly of nobles was convened, on the 15th 

 of March, 1859, to pronounce upon the sup- 

 pression of another privilege that of the 

 forum privilegiatum by virtue of which 

 the nobles could only be cited, in certain 

 cases, before the superior courts, and not 

 before the tribunals of first instance. Other 

 projects were entertained and submitted to 

 the discussion and to the votes of the Cham- 

 bers. In the same way, in the beginning of 

 April, 1869, the Norwegian Storthing voted a 

 considerable extension of the right of suffrage 

 to small proprietors, functionaries, and em- 

 ploye's. It was also decided that the Storthing 

 should thereafter hold its sessions annually. A 

 reform which King Charles exerted himself 

 personally to promote was the abolition of capi- 

 tal punishment. Toward the end of October, 

 1868, he refused to sign a death-warrant, and 

 declared that he would no longer sign any in 

 the future. If the penalty of capital punish- 

 ment was not abolished by law, it was virtually 

 at an end, throughout the kingdom, through 

 this act. He was married, on the 19th of 

 June, 1850, to the Princess Louisa, of Orange, 

 daughter of an uncle of the King of the Neth- 

 erlands, by whom he had one child, the Prin- 

 cess Louisa, married, July 28, 1869, to Prince 

 Frederick, eldest son of the King of Denmark. 



King Karl XV. was a man of deep feeling ; 

 generous, frank, and amiable in character, 

 and had a strong hold upon the affections of 

 his people. He was returning from a German 

 watering-place, whither he had been in the 

 vain hope of recovering his impaired health, 

 and was only able to reach Malmu in the south 

 of Sweden, when he peacefully expired. He 

 is succeeded by his brother, Oscar Frederick, 

 who reigns under the title of Oscar II. 



SWITZERLAND, a republic in Europe, has 

 been, since 1848, a united confederacy (Bunde- 

 staat), while before that year it was a league 

 of semi-independent states, or " Staatenbund." 

 The present constitution, which bears date 

 September 12, 1848, vests the supreme legisla- 

 tive and executive authority in a Parliament 

 of two Chambers, a Sanderath, or State Coun- 

 cil, and a Nationalrath, or National Council. 

 The first is composed of forty-four members, 

 chosen by the twenty-two cantons of the con- 

 federation, two for each canton. The Na- 

 tional Council, the members of which are 

 chosen in direct election at the rate of one 

 deputy for every twenty thousand souls, will, 

 according to the census of 1870, have 135 mem- 

 bers, divided among the cantons as follows : 



Bern . 25 



Zurich 14 



Vaud (Wandt) 11 



Aanrau 10 . 



St. Gall 10 



Lucerne 7 



Ticino (Tessin) 6 



Fribourg (Freyburg) 6 



Graubiindten (Orisons) 5 



Wallis (Valais) 5 



Thurgau 5 



Basel city, 2 I r 



Basel country, 3 ( 



Neufchatel (Neueuburg) 5 



Geneva (Genf ) 4 



Soleure 4 



Appenzell Outer Rhodes, 2 | 



Appenzell Inner Rhodes, 1. 



Glarus 



Schaffhausen 



Schwytz 



Unterwalden Upper, 1 



Unterwalden Lower, 1 



Uri 



Zug 



Total representatives 135 



A general election of representatives takes 

 place every three years ; the last having been 

 in October, 1872, the next will be in 1875. 

 Every citizen of the republic who has attained 

 the age of twenty years is entitled to a vote, 

 and any person, not a clergyman, may be 

 elected a deputy. The National Council and 

 the State Council together, are called the Fed- 

 eral Assembly (Bundesversammlung). The 

 chief executive power is vested in a federal 

 council, or Bundesrath, consisting of seven 

 members elected for three years by the Fed- 

 eral Assembly. The President and Vice-Presi- 

 dent of the Federal Council are the first magis- 

 trates of the republic. They are elected by 

 the Federal Assembly for a term of one year, 

 and are not reeligible till after the expiration 

 of another year. President for the year 1872, 

 Dr. E. Welti, of the Canton of Aargau ; Presi- 



