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Chancery, so long as they exercise their functions, shall form part of the Council, after having taken the oath. The 17 members of the Council cannot be dismissed without cause, unless it shall be made evident to my Sublime Porte that they have been guilty of some offence or infraction of the laws and statutes of the Country.

There shall be chosen and nominated from among the Servians a Kapu Kiaja, who shall continue to reside at my Sublime Porte and carry on the affairs of the Servian nation, in conformity with sovereign intentions, and with the national institutions and privileges of Servia.

Attributes of the 3 Functionaries.

The affairs of the Police, and of the Quarantine, the transmission of the Prince's orders to the authorities of the districts of the Country, the direction of the establishments of public utility and of the Post, the repair of the high roads, and the execution of the Regulations respecting the Troops of the Country, shall all be within the province of the officer charged with the affairs of the Interior.

The officer charged with the administration of Finance will have to revise the accounts, to make Commerce prosper, to look after and manage the Public Revenue, the amount of which shall be fixed by the laws of the Country, to cause the laws with regard to Commerce and Financial Affairs to be carried into effect, to settle the expenses of the Country according to the accounts drawn up by the other officers. He will take care to keep the Register of the Public and Private Property, as well as of the Real Estates, both of the Country and of the Government, and of the management of the Mines and of 'the Forests, as also of the other affairs which relate to his department.

The Director charged with the administration of Justice, having also within his province the Department of Public Instruction and the diffusion of Science, will have to examine and watch whether the sentences which have been passed have been executed or not, to hear and write down the complaints which may be made against the Judges, to examine the qualification of those who are called upon to administer justice, and to cause them to deliver to him every 3 months the return of all the causes which have been decided during that period; to interest himself in the state and in the condition of the Prisons, and to improve them. He will also

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occupy himself in forming the public character by the establishment of new Schools and in encouraging Instruction in necessary knowledge. He will have to inspect the Hospitals and other establishments of public utility, and will put himself in correspondence with the administrators of the Churches for the purpose of regulating all that relates to Religion, to Worship, and to the Churches.

No person who is not a Servian by birth, or who may not have been naturalized, according to the fundamental laws of the Country, as a Servian, can hold any of the 3 situations above mentioned.

The 3 Directors in question shall be independent of each other in the exercise of their respective functions, none being subject to the other, and each shall have his office apart from the others.

The Department of each of them shall be divided into several offices and sections, and every official paper emanating from any one of them on State business must be signed by each respectively; and, moreover, any case which may come within the province of the Departments belonging to them respectively, cannot be acted upon without having been previously countersigned by the head of the Department, and, in like manner, no order and no case can be acted upon without having been previously entered and registered in the books of the office to which they belong.

The 3 Directors must, in the months of March and April in each year, make an abstract of all the business which has been carried on in their own offices and in those which are subordinate to them, with a statement in detail, and present it, signed and sealed by them, as well as by the heads of Departments, to be examined by the Council of the Province.

Composition of the Tribunals for Legal Matters.

It is my express will that the Inhabitants of Servia, subjects of my Sublime Porte, shall be protected in their properties, their persons, their honour, and their dignity; and this same Imperial will is opposed to any individual whatever being deprived without trial, of his rights of citizenship, or exposed to any vexation or punishment whatsoever: wherefore it has been judged consistent with the laws of social wants and with the principles of justice, to establish in the Country several kinds of Courts, in order to punish the guilty or to do justice to every individual, public or

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private, in conformity with the statutes, and after the right and justification, or, on the contrary, the fault and the criminality, of each shall have been decided by a trial.

Accordingly, no Servian shall be exposed to the law of retaliation or to any other punishment, corporal or pecuniary, that is to say, fine, before that, in conformity with the terms of the law, he shall have been tried and condemned before a Court. The established Courts shall take cognizance, according to law, of matters under litigation, of commercial disputes, and shall examine into and determine definitively upon crimes and offences; and in no case shall the punishment of confiscation of property be inflicted.

The children and kinsmen of the guilty shall not be responsible for the fault of their fathers, nor punished for them. Three Courts are instituted for the administration of justice in Servia.

The first shall be established in the Villages, and composed of old men of the place, and called Court of Peace.

The second shall be the Court of First Instance, established in each of the 17 Districts of which Servia is composed.

The third shall be the Court of Appeal at the seat of Govern

ment.

The Court of Peace of each Village shall be composed of a President and two Assessors, elected by the inhabitants of the place; and each of these Village Courts shall not have cognizance of any matter above 100 piastres. Furthermore, they shall not inflict punishments exceeding an imprisonment of 3 days and 10 blows. Causes can only be there pleaded and decided upon summarily and verbally. The sentences of the two other Courts alone shall be drawn up in writing. The Village Court must send before the Court of the District of which it forms part a suit of more than 100 piastres, and the trial of a charge which involves a punishment of more than 10 blows, and likewise the plaintiff and the defendant.

The District Court, which is to take cognizance in the first instance of a case, shall be composed of a President, of 3 Members, and a sufficient number of Registers. The President and the Assessors of the Court of First Instance who shall not have attained to the age of 30 years, shall not be entitled to be thereunto appointed. This Court shall have the right of examining into, and determining upon, as well law-suits as crimes, offences, and commercial disputes.

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A delay of 8 days shall be allowed to every person who, having lost his suit before the Court of First Instance of his District, may be desirous of appealing from it to the Court of Appeal. And if, within the space of 8 days, the said person who has lost his suit shall not have appealed to the Court of Appeal, the sentence of the District Court shall be valid, and carried into effect. The Court of Appeal shall only have exclusive cognizance of the revision and decision of the causes and disputes which shall have already been brought before the Court of First Instance, and both the President of the Court of Appeal, and also the 4 members who shall be associated with him, must absolutely be 35 years old.

The members of the Servian Courts must be Servians by birth, or naturalised as such, in conformity with the statutes. As regards the suits which are carried from one Court to another, the President of each Court must deliver to the plaintiff and to the defendant an abstract of the sentence, under his hand and seal.

The members of the Village Courts of Peace cannot be members of the two other Courts. If one of the members of these two Courts should die, his successor must be chosen from among the lawyers who shall have held offices in the Courts; and among these, the senior in age or service shall be appointed in his turn.

No member of the Court shall be dismissed on the charge of having deviated from his duties before the matter shall be legally proved according to the statutes. When officers having military or civil rank, or priests, after their crime shall have been solemnly proved in consequence of a judgment according to the statutes, shall have been condemned to be punished, as corporal punishment cannot be inflicted on these persons, they shall be punished either by severe reprimand, or by imprisonment, or by degradation, or, finally, by banishing them to another place. No officer of the Principality, civil or military, high or low, shall take part in the business of the 3 Courts aforesaid, but they shall only be called upon to execute their sentences.

Commerce being free in Servia, every Servian may freely exercise it, and the slightest restriction upon that freedom shall never be allowed, unless the Prince, however, in concert with the Council of the Country, should deem it a matter of urgency to impose a temporary restriction upon some article or other.

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Every Servian acting in conformity with the laws of the State is at full liberty to sell his own goods and properties, to dispose thereof at pleasure, and to bequeath them by will. He cannot be deprived of this right except by a legal sentence of one of the Courts established in the country.

Every Servian who shall have a law-suit must have recourse to the Court of the District which he inhabits; he can only be summoned before the Court of the District in which he resides.

All forced labour is abolished in Servia, and no forced labour shall be imposed upon any Servian.

The expense occasioned by the maintenance and keeping in order of the bridges and highways shall be apportioned among the municipalities of the villages in the neighbourhood.

In like manner as the Central Administration of the Principality is entrusted with the direction and care of the main post routes, of the bridges, and other buildings of public utility, individuals must also know that it is necessary on their part to direct their own zeal and attention to that object.

Thou shalt fix, in concert with the Council, and equitably, a daily payment for the poor who are employed on these works; in the same manner as thou shalt agree with the Members of the Council to assign fixed annual salaries to all those who are employed in the different services of the Principality of the country.

Any officer who for a legal cause shall be desirous of retiring after a certain number of years of service, shall be at liberty to do so; the suitable pension which he shall have deserved shall be assigned to him after his retirement.

Every employment, whether civil, military, or judicial, shall be conferred in Servia by an ordinance of the Prince, on condition that every officer shall, in the first instance, commence by the lower ranks, and shall be, progressively and after having been tried, promoted to the superior ranks and employments.

Lawyers entrusted with judicial offices shall never be at liberty to change the nature of their employment, and to occupy places other than those in the Courts, and devoting themselves exclusively to their improvement in judicial matters. No civil or military officer shall be employed, even temporarily, in the Courts.

The Servian Rayahs, tributary to the Sublime Porte, being Christians of the Greek Religion, otherwise called the Church of