Democratic Sentinel, Volume 4, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 April 1880 — The Oldest Republic. [ARTICLE]

The Oldest Republic.

San Marino, the oldest and smallest republic in the world, is situated in i Eastern Central Italy, and is governed ! by a Legislative Senate of 60 members, ' elected for life; an Executive Council of I 12, two-thirds of whom go out every | year, and two Presidents, elected for six montffs. The territory of the republic' ! is twenty-two square miles in exter t, I and embraces five small villages, with a i population in 1874 of 7,816. The capital, of the same name, is perched on the crest of a mountain 2,635 feet above the sea, and commands a splendid view of the Appenines on one side, and at sunrise of the Dalmatian coast, across the Adriatic, on the other. It is said to have been founded early in the fourth century by St. Marinus a con verted stonemason, who fled from Remni (thirteen miles north) during the ; Diocletian persecution. There is a ■ standing army of 131 officers and 819 ' men, and it has an annual revenue of i about $22,000. The principal produets are fruit, silkworms, and vine. This little republic exists, of course, by the sufferance of its powerful neighbors, but owes much also to the good sense and energy of its citizens, the most dis- ! tinguished of whom has been Antonio Cnofri, a contemporary of the First Napoleon. There xs a history of the re- ! public by Melchiorre Delfico. A few days since a horse and a bull in a stable at Tipton, Pa., engaged in a i desparate pitched battle, w’hich resulted fatally to the former. They were, tied in adjoining stalls, and the horse reached over and nipped the bull. The old fel- > low got mad because he could not bite ■ back, and brdke loose. He then gored tfe h H's * sq badly in the side that he died.