Those communes which are able, and the greater part of them are so, are bound to assist the poor citizens according to their means, even when they have not resided there for several generations. The poor who are not citizens are left to what the commune does in general for the public assistance. The citizens only, and among them those alone who are resident, participate in the communal advantages resulting everywhere from the annual distribution which the commune makes of a portion of its revenues in kind, such as butter, cheese, wine, and wood.

These advantages may be quite considerable if the commune is rich and its resident citizens few, two circumstances which, without doubt, rarely meet.

There is, for instance, a village of small extent, situated at the foot of the Jura, which has possessed, in the commune itself, and independent of the individual fortunes of its inhabitants, in forests, mountains, pasturage, and invested money, a capital of at least a million of francs. All

those of its resident citizens having each a residence to themselves, receive annually in wood, butter, cheese, etc., to the value of two or three hundred francs or more, according to the good or bad management of communal affairs, the disposition to economy or expense in the administration, the absence of extra and temporary charges, and the number of the citizens. Distributions of this amount, or even less, are not to be despised in a rustic household. This commune, otherwise quite rural, sustains a very good primary school, has a little stone building dignified with the name of college, and some magnificent public fountains, which flow incessantly and pour out tons of pure water. All this, the commune defrays, besides the ordinary funeral expenses of its citizens indiscriminately. There are also other communes in analogous situations.

It is understood that this is not the case with a large number. Many of the communes are even poor; they have little or nothing, through bad administration or

less favorable geographical circumstances. But the greater part have a certain fortune which, well managed, permits them to continue some little distribution of the kind, and also to aid their poor, to promote the public interest by building a bridge, opening a road, having water works, a fountain with a carved marble basin, etc., without being obliged to assess and tax themselves as other surrounding cities are beginning to do.

If an individual is not a member of one of these communes by right of birth, he cannot become so except by paying for it, and even then not without the consent of its citizens. It sometimes happens that a commune gratuitously admits into its bosom a man who does not belong to it; but this is an honor rendered to distinguished services; one which is never lightly bestowed, and which is reasonably regarded as one of the noblest of national recompenses. Beyond this a foreigner cannot become a member. of a commune, and a Swiss can only do so by paying a price. This price varies according to the fortune of several of the communes and the number of children of the petitioner, and according to the wishes, the ideas, and even the caprices of the citizens, who are free in this matter to consult their own interests as they understand them. There are communes that we could cite where the right of citizenship could probably not be obtained, supposing the consent of the citizens granted, for less than five or six thousand francs. Smaller communes of a moderate fortune would demand ten or twelve hundred francs.

In all cases, whether it cost little or much, and the least is a few hundred francs, this is the first door to be passed on the road to Swiss citizenship. Still it is not naturalization; that is in the hands of the cantons, and is without price; but it is an indispensable condition thereto; neither the cantons nor the confederation can dispense with it.

But to return to our Homeless ones : supposing them to be really of Swiss origin, they may be the descendants of heads of families who have permitted their right of citizenship to be lost by neglecting the formalities necessary to preserve it, or at least to prevent its being forgotten. This might have resulted from different causes; personal negligence or carelessness; a prolonged absence combined with bad behavior; a wandering life during or

after foreign military service; disappointed projects of emigration, etc., etc.

Such of these causes as pertain to the character of individuals will always exist, but their frequency will diminish with the greater precision and rigor which are brought to bear in exacting and delivering certificates of origin. Whatever may be the futute result of these causes, yet their effect was largely developed at the close of the last century and the commencement of the present. The descendants of those families presumed to be originally of the country found themselves all at once unable to regain the right of commune possessed by their fathers, unless they could furnish the most complete historic proof, or were able, from their own resources, to purchase the communal right, an indispensable condition to the Swiss citizenship. The richer communes would not wish them, and the poorer ones would gain nothing by admitting them gratis, except the reckoning of one more poor member. Having thus in some sort lost their foothold in the Helvetic territory, they were homeless, without a country, and treated as such. Repulsed from their ancient commune, pretended or real, cast off from one canton to another, then from Switzerland to the adjoining states, which, in their turn, naturally rejected them, these unhappy beings wandered here and there, not knowing where to establish themselves, nor having, in the eyes of the law, any right to live in society or establish themselves anywhere. The spirit of communism, like that of all incorporate bodies, has its egotistic and inflexible sides. About 1820 some communes, particularly that called the archbishopric of Bâle, which at this time included the greater part of the Heimathloses, (about five hundred individuals in all,) seeing their indigence, their bad habits, and the increasing number of their children, preferred, rather than admit them to the rights of the commune, to make them gifts of money upon condition that they should emigrate to Brazil.

This undertaking was followed by the most disastrous consequences, the fault, as it appears, of the contractors. Many of the passengers perished on the trip. Then those who remained behind did not wish to emigrate. The two parties, the communes and the Homeless, were obstinate. A few of the latter showed themselves decided throughout. They declared

that they would sooner find death in their own country than to go to seek it in exile. We have now before us a little book in French, styled Les Heimathloses, translated from the German, and published at Berne in 1821, highly colored, it is true, and in the outline somewhat romantic. It shows us the unfortunate creatures wandering by night along the banks of the torrent down which some had already precipitated themselves, while the compassionate inhabitants were busy in saving them from the waters, and watching to prevent the accomplishment of their designs of selfdestruction.

The history of the Heimathloses has thus had its critical moments, which even threatened to end in tragedy. This people had become a plague to Switzerland, a plague not absolutely inherent to its republican organization, but was, however, resultant from that, as we have endeavored to show. At last, after various projects, all difficult of execution, the federal power has lately taken the thing in hand, and is busy with regulating their lot; but it has been obliged to recognize this fact, that the commune being the basis of all civil existence in Switzerland, if they did not become identified with some of these communes, they would, always form a kind of exception in the social organization of the country.

The past century witnessed a somewhat similar case in that of the French refugees at the time of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. A goodly number of them had not the necessary facilities for acquiring a citizenship. By the aid of their own resources and the help of their co-religionists at home and abroad they formed a corporation by degrees, not fixed to any one place, city, or village, but scattered among the families of which it is composed; yet hereditary in the families thus united by the tie of common religion, and having also its own administration and revenues.

Some plan of this kind had been proposed for the Heimathloses, but it was not carried out, and a federal law of the 3d of December, 1850, superseded the necessity of all other contrivances by distributing them among the different cantons, in order to incorporate them in the established communes. This incorporation was to be progressive; the Homeless shared in none but the political rights of the citizen, and, if

indigent, in the poor rate, but not in the annual distribution of the citizens' revenues, but, in return, his legitimate children, born after his incorporation, fully enjoyed all the communal rights and advantages. The council or federal power determines to which canton the Homeless shall belong, and in making that determination he should be guided according to the historical antecedents of the subject-his residence, indications of origin, etc. Contested cases are decided by the federal tribunal. Such are the principles of this law for the benefit of the Homeless, already in force five years; but its execution is not always easy; there has been more than one case bandied about from canton to canton, by the way of justice, if not by the gens d'armes, as formerly, and time alone will bring the means of their com plete assimilation.

FOR MOTHER'S SAKE.

A FATHER and his little son

On wintry waves were sailing; Fast, from their way, the light of day In cloud and gloom was failing, And fiercely round their lonely bark The stormy winds were wailing.

They knew that peril hover'd near;

They pray'd, "O! Heaven, deliver;" But a wilder blast came howling past, And soon, with sob and shiver, They struggled in the icy grasp

Of that dark, rushing river.

"Cling fast to me, my darling child,"
An anguish voice was crying;
While, silvery clear, o'er tempest drear,
Rose softer tones, replying,
"O! mind not me, my father dear;

I'm not afraid of dying;
O! mind not me, but save yourself,

For mother's sake, dear father;
Leave me, and hasten to the shore,

Or who will comfort mother?"

The angel forms that ever wait,

Unseen, on men attendant, Flew up, o'erjoy'd, to heaven's bright gate, And there, on page resplendent, High over those of heroes bold,

And martyrs famed in story,
They wrote the name of that brave boy,
And wreathed it round with glory.

God bless the child! ay, he did bless
That noble self-denial,

And safely bore him to the shore,

Through tempest, toil, and trial. Soon, in their bright and tranquil home, Son, sire, and that dear mother For whose sweet sake so much was done, In rapture met each other.

of which they have a great dread, imagining that it walks about of a night; and they therefore avoid, when dark, the vicinity of their burial-grounds. These burial-grounds I have attempted to describe elsewhere. They frequently burn the aged dead; and should a woman die having a young infant, the living child is buried with the mother. The name of the dead is never mentioned; and any one in the same tribe having a similar name is obliged to take another.

"The aboriginal method of courtship would not be admired by white ladies. The native, having determined on his future spouse, who is generally selected from another tribe, steals upon her secretly when she is at a little distance from the protectors, and stuns her by

striking her with a wooden club or wattie, and then drags her away to his own tribe. This is often the cause of their going to war.

"Naturally, the natives wear no clothing; but if any article of dress be given them, they are proud to array themselves in it. The manner in which they wrap a blanket around them, fastening it over one shoulder, is very graceful. The women are exceedingly susceptible to gay colors, and accept a bright pocket handkerchief, or a few beads, with as much delight as an English girl would receive a Parisian bonnet.

"The greatest passion of the aborigines is revenge; and even if one of them dies a natural death, they fling spears at one of his friends until blood appears; hence their universal hostility to the white man. They can never forget

nor forgive the atrocities perpetrated upon them by some of the early settlers, who at one time used to hunt them down like wild beasts, and fire at any they came upon, however inoffensive they might be.

"The features of the aborigines are not pleasing, being very coarse. Their lips are thick, with flat noses and low, receding foreheads. They are not, generally speaking, tall or well made, neither are they particularly strong. Their going about in such numbers alone makes them dangerous.

"The number of aborigines is not great, and it is steadily decreasing. Several tribes have already wholly disappeared. Many efforts have been made to protect them, and to induce them to adopt settled and industrious habits, but

with various success. Schools have been established by the government, but the young people almost invariably, when passing out of childhood, throw off their clothes and return to their native haunts and habits. A few girls become house-servants, but they are easily induced to leave for the woods. Of late there has, however, been a somewhat important change. The impossibility of obtaining a sufficient number of white shepherds and laborers, caused many stockkeepers to offer good money wages to the natives, instead of merely giving them food and clothes, as was before the custom, and to adapt the service to their feelings. The result is said to have been very generally beneficial. They show little inclination, or rather considerable dislike, for manual labor; but they