Such sections of the imperial constitution as provide for the rights of particular states can only be changed with the consent of the state concerned. States which fail to fulfil their federal duties can be coerced by means of an "execution," which is ordered by the federal council and carried out by the emperor. Disputes between states are decided by the federal council. The revenue and expenditures of the empire must annually be estimated and presented in the imperial budget. The expenditures of the empire are first met by the surplus of previous years, and by the income arising from customs, from the common branches of excise, and from the administration of postal affairs and telegraphs. If these revenues are insufficient, the balance is raised, as long as no imperial taxes are imposed, by contributions from the several states. The distribution is made by the imperial chancellor, who has annually to give an account of it to the federal council and the Reichstag. In the budget for 1873, the ordinary expenditures were estimated at $79,-560,000, and the extraordinary at $5,900,000. The direct revenue was estimated at $70,000,-000, leaving a balance of about $15,000,000 to be distributed among the states.

The public debt on April 8, 1873, amounted to only $1,224,000, which was soon to be paid off.-The military system of the empire is the same which has for many years been in operation in Prussia. Every German capable of bearing arms must serve for three years in the standing army, for four years in the reserve, and for five years in the landwehr. No substitution is allowed. The emperor is the commander of the entire German army in time of war, and, with the exception of the Bavarian troops, also in time of peace. All the German troops are bound to obey unconditionally the orders of the emperor; the Bavarian troops have this duty only in time of war. The emperor appoints (except in the Bavarian army) all the higher officers, orders the erection of fortresses in any part of the empire (in Bavaria and Wurtemberg with certain reservations), and in case of threatened disturbance of order can declare any country or district in a state of siege. The army of the empire is made up of the following contingents: 1, the army of Prussia, with which, in virtue of special military conventions, the troops of Oldenburg, Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, Lippe, Schaumburg - Lippe, Waldeck, Lubeck, Bremen, and Hamburg have been incorporated; 2, the contingents of Baden, Hesse, Saxe-Weimar, the three Saxon duchies, Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, and the two principalities of Reuss and that of Anhalt, the troops of which states are likewise by special conventions most closely united with the Prussian army, and have all their officers appointed by the emperor; 3, the contingents of the two grand duchies of Mecklenburg, whose officers are likewise appointed by the emperor; 4, the contingent of Brunswick; 5, the contingent of Saxony, forming a separate army corps; 6, the contingent of Wurtemberg, one corps; 7, the contingent of Bavaria, two corps.

In time of war several corps are formed into an army, each army embracing from two to four corps. The army corps, both in peace and war, is subdivided into divisions, brigades, regiments, and battalions. In 1873 the army on the peace footing embraced 17.036 officers and 401,659 rank and file, with 96,158 horses and 1,198 guns; divided into 148 regiments of infantry, 26 battalions of chasseurs, 93 regiments of cavalry, 35 regiments of field artillery, 13 regiments of foot artillery, 19 battalions of engineers, 18 battalions of train, and 293 battalions in depots of landwehr. On the war footing the army numbered 31,006 officers and 1,276,526 rank and file, of whom 676,486 were field troops with siege train, 245,793 reserve troops, and 354,247 garrisons. The fleet of war of the empire consisted of 42 steamers (of which 5 were ironclads), of 45,070 horse power and carrying 277 guns, and 5 sailing vessels, with 94 guns; 8 additional steamers were in course of construction. The navy was manned by 3.840 seamen and boys, and officered by 1 admiral, 1 vice admiral, 3 rear admirals, 44 captains, and 237 lieutenants.- Germany has four ports of war, Kiel, Dantzio, and Stral-sund on the Baltic, and Wilhelmshaven in the bay of Jahde on the North sea.-Protestantism is professed by 62-3 per cent. of the population.

Roman Catholicism by 36.2. The Protestants of the state churches, who are divided into Lutherans and German Reformed church, or united under the name of Evangelical church, in 1871 numbered 25,581,709; the free Protestant .churches, as the Baptists, Methodists, Moravians, Free congregations, Irvingites, etc, number 114,000. In Prussia, the Protestants constitute 65 per cent. of the total population; in Alsace-Lorraine, 17; in Bavaria, 27; in Baden, 33; in Wurtemberg and Hesse, 68; in Oldenburg, 76; in Hamburg, 91; in all the other states, from 96 to 99. The Catholics have thus a majority in only three states, Bavaria, Baden, and Alsace-Lorraine. Of the German princes two, the kings of Bavaria and Saxony, are Catholics. The number of Old Catholics was estimated in 1873 at 55,000. The Jews number 499,000, or about 1.2 per cent.; they are most numerous in Hamburg, where they constitute 4.4 per cent.; they are 3.l per cent. in Hesse, 2.7 in Alsace-Lorraine, 1.8 in Baden. 1.3 in Prussia, from 1 to 1.3 in Bavaria, Lippe, Waldeek, Anhalt, Lubeck, and Schaumburg, and less than 1 per cent. in all the other states.

The Protestant state churches in all the larger and most of the smaller states have now a synodal constitution; only in a few of the latter the government still clings to the consistorial constitution, in virtue of which the church is wholly ruled by consistories appointed by the state governments. There has been since 1846 a bond of union for all the states (inclusive of Austria) in the Evangelical church conferences, consisting of delegates of the several church governments, who meet biennially for the discussion of the common interests of the German Protestant churches. An agitation for the convocation of an imperial synod (Reichssynode) has- begun, and is gaining ground. The Roman Catholic church has five archbishops (Cologne, Posen, Munich, Bamberg, and Freiburg), 20 bishops, and three vicars apostolic. At the general meetings of the German bishops, the archbishop of Cologne presides. The Old Catholics in 1873 elected a missionary bishop for the German empire, who was recognized by the governments of Prussia, Baden, and Hesse as a bishop of the Catholic church.-There are 20 universities: Berlin, Bonn, Breslau, Erlangen, Freiburg, Giessen, Gottingen, Greifswald, Halle, Heidelberg, Jena, Kiel, Konigsberg, Leipsic, Marburg, Munich, Rostock, Strasburg, Tubingen, and Wurzburg. Each of these has the four faculties of theology, law, medicine, and philosophy.