Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1871.djvu/213

 GERMANY — REUSS-GREIZ. I 7 7

Constitution, Revenue, and Population.

Representative institutions of a very limited character were given to Schaumburg-Lippe in 1816. They comprise Landstande, or a Diet composed of all the noble landed proprietors, with four deputies of towns and six of the rural districts. The functions of this Diet are chiefly consultative, and to the Prince belongs the whole legislative and executive authority. He acts through a minister, called the President of the Government.

The budget, as far as it is known through statements laid at intervals before the Diet, comprises an annual revenue of 228,000 thaler, or 34,050/., and an expenditure of the like amount. There exists a comparatively large public debt, particulars of which, however, are not published.

The last census, of 18G7, gave a population of 31,186 souls, on an area of 212 square miles.

XXII. REUSS-GREIZ.

(FtfRSTENTHUM EEUSS- Gp.EIZ.)

Reigning Sovereign.

Heinrich XXII., Prince of Reuss-Greiz, born March 28, 1846, the Son of Prince Heinrich XXL, and of Princess Caroline of Hesse- Homburg ; succeeded to the throne at the death of his father, November 8, 1859; assumed the government March 28, 1867. Regent of Reuss-Greiz from 1859 to 1867 was the Prince's mother, Princess Caroline, born March 19, 1819, daughter of Landgrave Gustav of Hesse-Homburg ; married October 1, 1839, to Prince Henry XXI. ; widow, November 8, 1859.

The princely family of Reuss traces its descent to the Emperor Heinrich I. of Germany, surnamed the Fowler, who died in 936. All the heads of the house, ever since the commencement of the eleventh century, have been called Heinrich. At first the succeeding genera- tions were distinguished by descriptive appellations, such as ' The Rich', ' The Stout,' ' The Valiant,' and so forth ; but subsequently they adopted numbers. In the year 1701 it was settled, in a family council, that the figures should not rim higher than a hundred, beginning afterwards again at one. Previous to 1814 there were three reigning houses of Reuss ; but the Congress of Vienna ' me- diatised' the branch of Schleiz-Kostritz. The present sovereign of Reuss-Greiz has no civil list. He is very wealthy, the greater part of the territory over which he reigns being his private property.

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