Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1871.djvu/219

 GERMANY — BREMEN. 1 8 3

proper had 36,353, and the rural districts, composed of scattered portions of territory surrounded by Prussia and Mecklenburg, 12,185 inhabitants at the date of the census operation.

Liibeck possessed, at the commencement of 18G8, fifty-nine sea-going vessels, among them thirteen steamers. Particulars ot the commerce of the free city with England are summed up under that of Hamburg, chief of the ' Hanse Towns.'

XXV. BREMEN.

(Fkeie Stadt Bremen.)

Constitution and Revenue.

The Free City of Bremen is governed by a Senate of thirty members, acting under the legislative authority of the General Assembly of citizens, sitting under the name of the Blirgerconvent, or Convent of Burgesses. The Convent is divided into committees, and presided over by members of the College of Aldermen, in whom is vested a portion of the executive power. Two burgomasters, the first elected for six years and a half, and the second for four years, direct the affairs of the Senate, through a Ministry divided into eight depart- ments, namely, Foreign Affairs, Church and Education, Justice, Finance, Police, Medical and Sanitary Administration, Military Affairs, and Commerce and Shipping. All the ministers are senators.

The public revenue for the year 1866 amounted to 1,858,992 thaler, or 309,834Z., and the expenditure to 2,163,019 thaler, or 360,503/. Very nearly one-half the revenue is raised by indirect taxes ; while about the same amount is expended for interest and reduction of the public debt. The latter amounted, in 1867, to 11,734,165 thaler, or 1,760,124/. This sum includes a railway loan of four million of thaler, at 4|- per cent., negotiated in 1859.

Population and Commerce,

The population of the. state amounted, in 1867, to 109,572, inclusive of a garrison of 780 Prussian soldiers. The inhabitants <^f the city proper numbered 74,945 at the census date*, the rest living at the port of Bremerhaven, and in the rural districts. The state comprises an area of 106 English square miles.

The territory of Bremerhaven, at the mouth of the river Weser, was bought from the Hanoverian Government in the year 1827, for the sum of 77,200 thaler, and has proved of great advantage to the commercial interests of the Free City, having become of late years the seat of an extensive shipping trade, as well as the- chief