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 246 NETHERLANDS provinces is left to their superintendence. The king appoints a commissioner to preside over their sessions, which are held semi-annually. The members are elected for six years at tri- ennial elections, by the same constituencies that elect the members of the states general. The number of the members of these provin- cial legislatures varies in each province, that of South Holland, which is most numerous, having 80 members, and that of Drenthe, the smallest, 35. The communes into which each province is subdivided are governed by a burgomaster appointed by the king and by local councils elected by the people for a term of years. In 1874 the public debt amounted to 937,020,076 florins. The receipts were 93,- 742,143 florins, and the expenditures 100,243,- 980. The receipts of the colonial adminis- tration in 1874 were 124,908,632 florins, and the expenditures 114,761,528. In the budget for 1875, presented Sept. 19, 1874, the receipts were estimated at 129,000,000 florins, and the expenditures at 119,000,000. The army in 1874 comprised 62,071 men. The navy con- sisted of 84 steamers and 16 sailing vessels, carrying together 773 guns, besides which there were about 70 gunboats. The fleet was manned on July 1, 1874, by 6,886 men, inclu- ding 1,864 marines. The largest moneyed insti- tutions are the Netherlandish bank in Amster- dam, founded in 1814, which is a bank of issue and has a capital of 16,000,000 florins; the bank of Amsterdam, established in 1872, cap- ital 10,000,000; and the bank of Rotterdam, capital 15,000,000. The aggregate length of the railroads in operation Jan. 1, 1874, was 989 m., the larger portion of which were owned by the state, besides 549 m. for which conces- sions have been given. The electric telegraph lines owned by the state had an aggregate length of 3,277 m. ; the length of the wires was 11,738 m. The extent of the net of private telegraphs is not known. Justice is adminis- tered by various courts, the chief of which is the high court of the Netherlands, consisting of a president, vice president, and 12 judges, appointed by the king from three candidates presented to him for each vacancy by the lower house of the states general. The judges hold office for life. This court hears appeals from the lower courts. All causes in which the state is defendant are tried before this court, and the high functionaries of govern- ment are amenable to it only. There is also a provincial court in each province, and sub- ordinate to them are district courts, which have each from 5 to 14 judges, and 150 can- tonal courts, which have each a judge of the peace and a recorder. In 1870 the prisons of all kinds had 2,407 inmates. There is an ex- cellent prison for male juvenile delinquents at Rotterdam, and another for young females at Amsterdam, which are admirably managed and serve as schools for intellectual and religious training. The first historical notice of the Netherlands (in the wider sense) which has come down to us is contained in Caesar's ac- count of his wars with the Belgee and other barbarian tribes who inhabited its morasses. These tribes were mostly of Gallic race, though in some parts of the country several clans of Germanic origin had established themselves, preeminent among whom were the Batavi, whom Tacitus calls the bravest of all the Ger- mans, and of whom in fact the Romans always spoke with marked respect. They were the allies, not the subjects of the Romans, and a Batavian legion formed the body guard of the emperors down to the time of Vespasian. Du- ring the civil war between Vespasian and Vitel- lius, Claudius Civilis, a Batavian who had served for many years in the Roman army and had received a Roman education, organized a gen- eral confederation of all the Netherland tribes against the Romans (A. D. 69); but after a heroic struggle the insurgents were crushed by the armies of Vespasian, who had now attained the purple, and the Netherlands re- mained among the provinces of the empire till they were overrun by the northern barbarians in the 5th century. The Batavi still formed the bravest portion of the Roman forces, and their cavalry was particularly distinguished. In the great battle at Strasburg between the Germans and the army of the future emperor Julian* (357), the Batavian horse saved the day for the Romans. This was .the last of their achieve- ments mentioned in history, and soon after- ward the Batavian nation seems to have lost its individuality and to have become merged, together with the Belgse, in the Frankish and Frisian tribes who had invaded and occupied the country. The monarchy of the Franks in the 6th and 7th centuries embraced the whole of the Netherlands. In the 8th century the Frisians revolted, but were subdued by Charles Martel about 734, and were soon afterward converted to Christianity. At the beginning of the 9th century they formed a part of the empire of Charlemagne. A century later, under the influence of the feudal system, the whole of the Netherlands was in the posses- sion of a number of princes, owning a limited species of allegiance, some to the German em- pire, and some to the kings of France. In 922 Charles the Simple created by letters patent the first count of Holland. Before the 13th century the Netherlands had become divided into several dukedoms and countships, whose chiefs acknowledged little more than a nominal allegiance to any other sovereign. The most powerful of these potentates was the count of Flanders, whose dominions in 1384 fell to the house of Burgundy ; and in 1437 Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, became master of al- most the entire Netherlands, and his successors acquired the rest. At this period the country had already become rich and populous, and the commercial cities had acquired a controlling influence in the government, and within their own limits enjoyed almost republican free- dom. The states general, as the parliament