That the reader may be able to form a clear idea of the general administration of Corsica, I shall here furnish briefly its more important details.
Corsica has been a department since the year 1811. It is governed by a prefect, who resides in Ajaccio. He also discharges the functions of sub-prefect for the arrondissement of Ajaccio. He has four sub-prefects under him in the other four arrondissements. The prefect is assisted by the Council of the prefecture, consisting of three members, besides the prefect as president, and deciding on claims of exemption, &c., in connexion with taxes, the public works, the communal and national estates. There is an appeal to the Council of State.
The General Council, the members of which are elected by the voters of each canton, assembles yearly in Ajaccio to deliberate on the public affairs of the nation. It is competent to regulate the distribution of the direct taxes over the arrondissements. The General Council can only meet by a decree of the supreme head of the state, who determines the length of the sitting. There is a representative for each canton, in all, therefore, there are sixty-one.
In the chief town of each arrondissement meets a provincial council of as many members as there are cantons in the arrondissement. The citizens who, according to French law, are entitled to vote, are also voters for the Legislative Assembly. There are about 50,000 voters in Corsica.
Mayors, with adjuncts named by the prefect, conduct the affairs of the communes; the people have retained so much of their democratic rights, that they are allowed to elect the municipal council over which the mayor presides.
As regards the administration of justice, the high court of the department is the Appeal Court of Bastia, which consists of one chief president, two présidents de chambre, seventeen councillors, one auditor, one procurator-general, two advocates-general, one substitute, five clerks of court.
The Court of Assize holds its sittings in Bastia, and consists of three appeal-councillors, the procurator-general, and a clerk of court. It sits usually once every four months. There is a Tribunal of First Instance in the principal town of each arrondissement. There is also in each canton a justice of the peace. Each commune has a tribunal of simple municipal police, consisting of the mayor and his adjuncts.
The ecclesiastical administration is subject to the diocese of Ajaccio, the bishop of which—the only one in Corsica—is a suffragan of the Archbishop of Aix.
Corsica forms the seventeenth military division of France. Its head-quarters are in Bastia, where the general of the division resides. The gendarmerie, so important for Corsica, forms the seventeenth legion, and is also stationed in Bastia. It is composed of four companies, with four chefs, sixteen lieutenancies, and one hundred and two brigades.
I add a few particulars in regard to agriculture and industrial affairs. Agriculture, the foundation of all national wealth, is very low in Corsica. This is very evident from the single fact, that the cultivated lands of the island amount to a trifle more than three-tenths of the surface. The exact area of the island is 874,741 hectars.[C] The progress of agriculture is infinitely retarded by family feuds, bandit-life, the community of land in the parishes, the want of roads, the great distance of the tilled grounds from the dwellings, the unwholesome atmosphere of the plains, and most of all by the Corsican indolence.