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Rh ground, in a town, of the value of three hundred kroner (about 16l.). The right to vote is suspended on indictment for a criminal offence, on suspending payment, or on making a declaration of bankruptcy, in which case the suspension lasts until the creditors have received payment in full. An exception, however, is made in favor of a debtor whose failure has been caused through losses by fire, or other unexpected and innocent misfortune. A voter, also, cannot vote if he have been deprived of the conduct of his own affairs and placed under curatory. The right to vote is lost where an elector has been condemned to imprisonment or to penal servitude or other degrading punishment, and where an elector enters into the service of a foreign power without the consent of the government, or acquires a right of citizenship in a foreign State. Conviction of having bribed, or of having been bribed, or of having voted at more than one meeting of electors, also entails a forfeiture of the right to vote.

An elector who is chosen by his co-electors to represent them in the Storthing, is bound to serve, unless prevented by some legally sufficient excuse; but he may decline to be re-elected to the Storthing immediately following that in which he has served. To lessen the hardship of this compulsory service, the travelling expenses of members of the Storthing are paid, and they also receive a sum for their support during their attendance on the meetings of the Storthing at Christiania. The peculiarities of the Norwegian constitution are, in the main, due to the national characteristics of the country and of the people. The comparatively isolated life of the peasants, cut off from intercourse with towns, and but half acquainted with the doings of their neighbors in the adjoining valleys, made some plan necessary by which suitable representatives should be chosen, and, at the same time, the views of all the voters be consulted. In order to attain these results, the plan was adopted of making the voters in each parish choose from among themselves electors to whom the selection of the representatives of the district might be entrusted. In no other way could good representatives have been elected. The expense of a canvass of a mountainous province would have been too great for the limited purses of the few well-to-do peasants, and would have thrown the representation into the hands of carpetbaggers, of whose qualifications or disqualifications the peasants would have been unable to judge, or the election would have fallen by chance rather than by selection on some peasant who happened to have a larger circle of friends than was usual, amidst the general apathy of the voters. As it is, however, the interest taken in the different parishes, in all that concerns the country as well as the parish, is intelligent, even if sometimes short-sighted. The rule, again, which excludes members of the government and civil servants from seats in the Storthing, springs naturally from the same state of matters. In great districts of the country men can be found who will leave their farms, and for a few weeks or months reside in Christiania, and assist in the making of new laws; but few if any of them would be willing to devote themselves for years to the public service while their own affairs were perforce neglected. The members of government would, then, have been selected from the representatives of the towns, or rather of Christiania and the towns in the south of Norway; but this limitation would almost certainly have worked ill, by confining the choice of the sovereign to a narrow class, and to a class, moreover, which might very frequently be opposed by the large majority of the Storthing, for, as has already been stated, two-thirds of the members represent country districts, and do not sympathize readily with the views which find acceptance in the towns. In these circumstances the exclusion of the members of the Storthing from the government has probably led to the filling of high offices with more able officials than would have been obtained if a seat in the Storthing had been practically indispensable. The improvement of the Norwegian roads and the introduction of railways, both of which tend to put an end to the separation of different provinces, are rendering the maintenance of this restriction less necessary, and if ever, as is at present proposed, the members of the government are chosen from the national representatives, it will be made less difficult than it would have been formerly for able men to secure seats in the Storthing in distant parts of the country, and the limitation of the choice of the electors to those who are resident in the same province will of necessity have to be abolished.

The judicial system of Norway is simple. Courts of first instance, before which, with few exceptions, all civil and criminal cases are brought, exist in the country districts as well as in the towns; and from these courts an appeal lies to the court of the stift or province, and 