were in America.  I believe the confederation has some control over the public mails, though I think this is done, also, through the cantons.  The Diet neither coins money, nor establishes any courts, beyond its own power to decide certain matters that may arise between the cantons themselves.  In short, the government is a very loose one, and it could not hold together in a crisis, were it not for the jealousy of its neighbours.

[Footnote 44:  Basle is now divided into what are called “Basle town” and “Basle country;” or the city population and the rural.  Before the late changes, the former ruled the latter.]

I have already told you that there exists a strong desire among the intelligent to modify this system.  Consolidation, as you know from my letters, is wished by no one, for the great difference between the town and the rural populations causes both to wish to remain independent.  Three languages are spoken in Switzerland, without including the Rhetian, or any of the numerous patois.  All the north is German.  Geneva, Vaud, and Valais are French, as are parts of Berne; while Tessino, lying altogether south of the Alps, is Italian.  I have been told, that the states which treat with Switzerland for mercenaries, condition that none of them shall be raised in Tessino.  But the practice of treating for mercenaries is likely to be discontinued altogether, though the republic has lately done something in this way for the Pope.  The objection is to the Italian character, which is thought to be less constant than that of the real Swiss.

Men, and especially men of narrow habits and secluded lives, part reluctantly with authority.  Nothing can to be more evident than the fact, that a common currency, common post-offices, common custom-houses, if there are to be any at all, and various other similar changes, would be a great improvement on the present system of Switzerland.  But a few who control opinion in the small cantons, and who would lose authority by the measure, oppose the change.  The entire territory of the republic is not as great as that of Pennsylvania, nor is the entire population much greater than that of the same state.  It is materially less than the population of New York.  On the subject of their numbers, there exists a singular, and to me an inapplicable, sensitiveness.  It is not possible to come at the precise population of Switzerland.  That given in the tables of the contingents is thought to be exaggerated, though one does not very well understand the motive.  I presume the entire population of the country is somewhere between 1,500,000, and 1,900,000.  Some pretend, however, there are 2,000,000.  Admitting the latter number, you will perceive that the single state of New York considerably surpasses it.[45] More than one-third of the entire population of Switzerland is probably in the single canton of Berne, as one-seventh of that of the United States is in New York.  The proportion between surface and inhabitants is not very different between New England and Switzerland, if Maine be excluded.  Parts of the cantons are crowded with people, as Zurich for instance, while a large part is uninhabitable rocks and ice.