The Army has been thoroughly reorganised, and is now, thanks to the gift of the Czar, armed with the most modern magazine rifle and officered by men who undergo a training in the armies of Russia, Italy, or France.

The army system is of the simplest.  The actual standing army consists of one battalion and a force of artillery, but during the year 4,000 men pass through its ranks and receive a most efficient training.  The men return to their homes at the end of four months’ training, but drill weekly continues, on Sundays, till the age limit of sixty is reached, when their arms have to be returned to the Government, who again serve them out to the next recruit.  Thus the recruit comes equipped for his four months’ training, and takes his arms home with him at the conclusion, and is responsible for their good condition.  Each man receives a certain number of cartridges, for which he must always be able to account, so that every able-bodied man is an efficient and well-armed soldier capable of taking the field at any moment.

The smartest men become non-commissioned officers, and carry the insignia of their rank on their caps back to private life, where they become again the instructors of the local militia companies.  There are two classes of commissioned officers—­the officer of the standing army, trained in a Continental army, and who wears a distinctive uniform, and at least one of these is detailed for service in all the militia centres; and the militia officer, who receives his training with the standing battalion or batteries.

Thus at a preconcerted signal, by trumpet and bonfires at night, and in some districts by a salvo of rifles, the whole Montenegrin Army can be mobilised at any given spot within the time that the furthest detachment can travel to the place of rendezvous.  An example of the rapidity and ease of this mobilisation was once given to the late Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria, at Cetinje, when an army, drawn from every part of the country, equipped and ready for the field, was assembled within thirty-six hours of the first alarm.  There is no commissariat, for each soldier supplies his own food, or rather his wife will keep him supplied in a lengthy campaign; no cavalry, for they are useless; and no heavy artillery.

Law is administered by district courts for the more serious cases, with a Supreme Court of Appeal at Cetinje.  There are no lawyers or costs; each man brings his own case and witnesses in civil matters, and criminals are dealt with summarily—­that is to say, his district captain sends him in chains to Podgorica, where he receives his final sentence.  The smaller district captains and “kmets,” or mayors, have a limited amount of jurisdiction, and can inflict punishments, either in fines or short terms of imprisonment.  They also settle all minor cases of dispute.

The central, and soon to be the only, prison is at Podgorica.  The majority of prisoners are undergoing different sentences, with and without chains, for murders in connection with the vendetta, according to the circumstances.  A man who defends his honour, who kills his slanderer, is very lightly punished.