PORTUGAL. 



POTTER, CLARKSON N. 697 



pers, and 792,972 postal-cards, and 3,499,133 

 foreign letters and postal-cards received and 

 dispatched. The receipts were, in 1879-'80, 

 495,060 milreis. 



AEMY AND NAVY. The army is recruited 

 partly by conscription under the law of 1864, 

 introducing obligatory military service; but 

 about one half the standing army is composed 

 of enlisted volunteers. One half the conscripts 

 are not required to receive instructions. The 

 half who enter the army for the three years of 

 active service are chosen by a second drawing 

 of lots among the total number conscripted. 

 The effective annual recruit averages about 

 10,000. Immunity from conscription is pur- 

 chasable for about $200. The active army in 

 1882 numbered nominally 1,643 officers and 

 33,231 men on the peace footing, and 2,688 

 officers and 75,336 men on the war footing. 

 There were in actual service on the 31st of 

 July, 2,097 officers and 28,156 men, including 

 2,617 men on leave of absence. 



The navy in 1882 consisted of one ironclad 

 corvette, 7 other corvettes, 9 gunboats, 2 tor- 

 pedo-boats, and 12 other steamers, besides 16 

 sailing-vessels. It was manned by 280 officers 

 and 3,034 seamen. 



FINANCES. The average revenues for the 

 last ten years have amounted to about $25,- 

 000,000, and the average expenditures to about 

 $3,750,000 more. The total revenue in 1878- 

 '79 was 28,944,484 milreis and the total ex- 

 penditures were 34,118,700, of which 10,723,- 

 928 milreis were paid on the public debt, 7,167,- 

 885 for public works, and 16,226,887 for ordi- 

 nary expenses. The estimated revenue for 

 1882-'83 is 29,654,012 milreis, of which 6,066,- 

 630 milreis are derived from direct taxes, 15,- 

 210,770 from indirect, and 2,578,234 from the 

 railroads, posts, and other public property and 

 enterprises. The estimated expenditures are 

 35,276,211 milreis, of which 13,089,321 are for 

 the public debt; 5,763,870 for the civil list, 

 pensions, interest, and capital payments on 

 temporary debt, and financial administration ; 

 2,161,149 for public instruction, charities, pub- 

 lic safety, subventions to municipalities, and 

 other expenses in charge of the Ministry of the 

 Interior; 627,372 for the Ministry of Worship 

 and Justice ; 4,599,930 for the Ministry of War ; 

 1,663,721 for the Ministry of Marine and the 

 Colonies; 308,486 for the Ministry of Foreign 

 Affairs; 2,727,084 for the Ministry of Public 

 Works; and 4,335,278 for outlay on public 

 works, constituting the extraordinary expen- 

 diture. 



The colonial budgets for 1882-'83 show 

 2,388,445 milreis of aggregate receipts, and 

 2,579,146 of expenditures. 



The public debt on June 30, 1881, amounted 

 to 430,879,399 milreis, of which 232,929,349 

 milreis formed the domestic debt, newly funded 

 at 3 per cent, and 197,950,050 milreis the for- 

 eign debt, contracted in England. For over 

 thirty years there has been no budget without 

 a deficit. The funded debt in July, 1880, 



amounted to 391,667,650 milreis. In Decem- 

 ber of that year a new foreign loan of 4,000,- 

 000 sterling was added. The interest on the 

 debt is never fully paid. The foreign 3 per 

 cent loans were issued at 50 per cent of their 

 face value. In 1852 the interest on the debt, 

 amounting then to nearly $100,000,000, was 

 arbitrarily reduced to 3 per cent. In 1873 the 

 floating debt was funded by the issue of a loan 

 of $42,500,000 of 3 per cent bonds at 43 per 

 cent; but it has continued since to accumu- 

 late. 



LEGISLATION. In the royal speech at the 

 opening of the Cortes on January 2d, new 

 measures for the development of primary and 

 secondary education, army and navy reforms, 

 the building of railroads and highways, for 

 establishing a financial equilibrium, and a new 

 commercial treaty with France were announced. 

 Although the legal period of the session was 

 prolonged eight times and the Cortes sat one 

 hundred and ninety-nine days, many of the 

 measures introduced had to be postponed. The 

 commercial convention with France was ap- 

 proved. A syndicate which undertakes the 

 construction of a railroad from Salamanca, in 

 Spain, to Oporto and Beira Alta was guaran- 

 teed 5 per cent interest, in spite of a violent 

 opposition. 



POLITICS. The Government continues to re- 

 strain its vigorous opponents by force, break- 

 ing up public meetings which discuss its policy 

 with hostility. In the latter part of 1882 the 

 anarchistic form of socialism, propounded by 

 the Russian, Bakunin, which has many adher- 

 ents in Southern Europe, particularly in Spain, 

 began to manifest itself in the formation of 

 secret societies and revolutionary conspiracies. 



POTTER, CLARKSON N., lawyer, born at 

 Schenectady, N. Y., in 1824; died January 23, 

 1882, at his home in New York city. Mr. Potter 

 was of Quaker descent ; his ancestors in this 

 country settling at Warwick Neck, R. I., in 

 1640. His grandfather was Joseph Potter, who 

 represented. Dutchess County, N. Y., in the 

 Legislature shortly after the Revolution, and his 

 father Alonzo Potter, Bishop of Pennsylvania. 

 On his mother's side he was descended from 

 the distinguished Eliphalet Nott, for a long 

 time president of Union College, who preached 

 the celebrated funeral sermon over Alexander 

 Hamilton. Mr. Potter was graduated from 

 Union College in 1842, and afterward studied 

 civil engineering at the Rensselaer Institute. 

 In 1843 he went to Milwaukee, Wis., then a 

 small village, where he was employed for a time 

 by the postmaster. He afterward found em- 

 ployment as an engineer, and at the same time 

 studied law, and in 1848 began the practice of 

 this profession in his native State, which he 

 continued until 1859, gaining a high reputation. 

 In this year he retired, his brother, Robert B., 

 succeeding him. On the breaking out of the 

 rebellion his brother enlisted, and Mr. Potter 

 resumed his practice at the bar. In 1868 he 

 was elected to Congress from the Twelfth Dis- 



