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hindering the development of industry. This form of government was, however, acceptable to most townspeople, but strongly resented by the inhabitants of rural areas within urban cantons, particularly in matters of religion, which included the control of education and relief of poverty. Originally it had been possible for country-dwellers to purchase Bürgerrecht [citizens' rights], that is to become citizens of their local town even though living outside its walls, but by the 18 th century this purchase had become prohibitively expensive or been abolished altogether.

In the "democratic" cantons, the Landsgemeind [citizens' assembly] held the supreme power, though it might elect or appoint various councils and courts as its executives. Like the councils of the oligarchies, however, the Landsgemeinde were often in the pocket of the local fat cats, offices were often obtained by dubious means, or virtually hereditary, and most were held for life. The meetings could, as Bräker complains, be nothing more than an audience for hotheads who liked the sound of their own voices. The American writer Louis Simond, writing in the early 19th century, says that the Landammann [president of the assembly] must "cajole the sovereign people into a belief that they dictate, while, in fact, they are dictated to". He also mentions, however, hearing of a particularly stormy meeting of the Landsgemeind of Glarus in which the Landammann was "dragged about by the hair" [pp 365-6.] From a modern point of view, too, it is hard to see anything democratic in assemblies which gave the vote to boys (in some cantons as young as fourteen) but not to women, and in some cases appointed their officials by drawing lots, or even by the eeny-meeny-miney-mo system [Coxe, v 3 p 78]. Even at its best a Landsgemeind, which could meet only a few times a year, took a very long time to reach its decisions, but to the ultra-conservative rural Swiss this slowness was seldom objectionable. Less acceptable was the slow decision-making of the courts under either form of government, delay in obtaining justice caused hardship, and even despair. Much resentment was caused when different sentences were given for apparently similar crimes. Admirers of the Swiss were also shocked to discover that some Swiss courts included torture in the judicial process, its actual use declined during the 18 th century but in some cantons it remained legal until the Revolution.

The cantons and other territories were subdivided into Gemeinde, a word often translated as "parish", but this is misleading as the Gemeind was a secular administrative division, not a parish of the local church. Gemeinde held their own assemblies and elected or appointed some local officials. Government by popular assembly at any level did not rule out the same political and economic restrictions that prevailed in the oligarchies. Some cantons and Gemeinde limited the granting of Landrecht [land rights], which meant that they might refuse to allow migrants from outside to settle within their boundaries, or would accept them but without granting land rights. Since these rights included the right to graze animals on common land, the newcomers would be virtually unable to support themselves by farming, and would be forced either to work as hired servants or to depend entirely on industrial outwork.

It can be seen, therefore, that the relative prosperity of Switzerland still left plenty of room for criticism of its "many and manifold" governments (to quote Bräker). None of them, however, had any idea of changing its ways to comply with criticism by its people, and all of them lived in more or less constant fear of a popular uprising. This was not entirely unreasonable in that at least nine such uprisings took place between 1700 and 1770; there were of course others in the last three decades of the century, before and after the Revolution. It was not until the end of the century, however, that revolutionary movements began to appear in the whole of Switzerland at more or less the same time. Before then, the uprisings were related to food shortages, local taxation or religious intolerance, and the cantonal governments were able to suppress them without too much trouble, sometimes with the help of forces provided by other cantons. The disproportionate force used, however, and the savage punishments meted out to leaders of disaffection, show that the authorities did not feel themselves to be secure in their powers. Freedom of speech or of the press was not to be found even in places of learning and culture such as Zürich.

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