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.
Against only one class of offender does Prince Nicolas exercise his autocratic powers, i.e. the political offender, with whom he is relentless. Such men are thrown into prison, interred in dark cells without trial, and can languish till death sets them free. In this respect the Prince is harsh, and according to Western ideas barbaric, though local circumstances fully excuse his seeming cruelty. The smallness of the prison at Podgorica shows more forcibly than anything else the remarkable lack of crime in the land. At present (1902) dangerous lunatics are confined in the common prison, but an asylum is rapidly nearing completion.
The government is autocratic. A senate, composed of the different ministers, exists in Cetinje, but all powers are jealously held by the Prince. He appoints the ministers and all the higher officials of the land, and only recently have the people been granted the right to elect the kmets.
Montenegrin engineers now build the roads in place of Austrians and Russians, and the difficulties that they meet with and surpass at every turn are sufficient evidence of their capabilities. Foreign doctors and professors are yearly becoming more rare. In fact, Montenegro is rapidly becoming self-supporting and self-educating.
Literature, always in olden times in advance of the surrounding lands, is fostered by the Prince, himself a scholar and a poet of no mean order. Two weekly papers in Cetinje and Nikšić have a large circulation.
Under Prince Nicolas' fatherly care the country improves in a wonderful manner from year to year. Roads are planned to connect the whole land, which only lack of funds are hindering from completion, and a railway is projected to connect the towns of Nikšić, Podgorica, and Rijeka with Antivari and the sea.
When Prince Nicolas shall be called to his fathers his son, Prince Danilo, will worthily carry on the work so nobly begun by his father, for he is a man imbued with the ideas of Western improvements and civilisation.