phus, these ornaments of their city to Gustavus III. It is necessary to break this chain. It is no disparagement of the military merits of Bernadotte, to say that it would be altogether ridiculous to place them by the side of the successful struggles of the first Vasa for the independence of Sweden; of Gustavus Adolphus, for the religious freedom of mankind; or of Charles XII., for military renown. The royal dynasty will be in a false position when, in the course of nature, it comes to depend upon ancestral merit interwoven with the history, establishments, and national feelings of the Swedish people. It would be therefore a wise, but a hazardous policy, to begin a new history; to remove their capital to an independent site; to surround themselves with memorials of their own, and sink the Vasa race into the same oblivion as that has sunk the race of Swerker, or Saint Eric. If the works carrying on at Vannæs are preparatory to a removal of the seat of government, they must be considered in a very different light from that of the silly adoption of all foreign ideas and schemes, however unsuitable to their country, to which the Swedes are prone.

CHAPTER VI.

SWEDISH SYSTEM OF POSTING. JOURNEY FROM SUNDSVAL.

CHEAP TRAVELLING.

TION.

AASES.

GEFLE.

POPULA-
MORAL STATE. -PROPORTION OF CRIME. CROSS
GUSTAVUS IV.

ROADS. CROPS. GUSTAVUS VASA.
SIMILARITY BETWEEN THE RISE AND FALL OF THIS
DYNASTY.

FAHLUN.

MINES.

MINING DEPARTMENT. AMOUNT OF COPPER. — OF IRON.

DALECARLIANS.

STUDYING THE DIFFERENT SCIENCES. — CLASSES OF SO

CIETY TO WHICH THEY BELONG.

NUMBER OF NOBILITY

AT THE UNIVERSITIES SMALL. -CLERGY.
NUMBER OF CONGREGATIONS.

PROPORTION TO THE PO-
PRESSURE ON THE COUNTRY.
LUTHERAN RELIGION.

PULATION.

DUES.

THE RELIGIOUS WANTS OF THIS AGE. WANT OF IN

July.I HAVE had an opportunity this rainy day, of seeing the effects of the Swedish system of posting with the horses of the peasantry. A lad, sometimes a girl, comes with horse and cart, - there are generally three or four at once in the yard of the public house-and lounges about in the gin shop or in the yard, until a traveller arrives, or until their time of waiting is out. They are then relieved by a new set; and this goes round as regularly as on a cavalry out-post. In the country, the people living in the immediate neighbourhood of

the road or inn, are probably not so exact in waiting at the house; but at six o'clock in the evening, the day begins for the tour of duty with these hal hester, and very heavy fines are imposed upon the absentees or defaulters. By a reference to the daybook, which every innkeeper must keep, and which is given in monthly to the authorities of the district, the traveller sees whether there should be hal hester on the spot (the number belonging to the station, and the number taken out, being stated), or whether he has to wait for the reserve horses. The young people attending with these horses, if not drinking, are idling and wasting time to no purpose. It is a very barbarous institution for a civilised country to be proud of; yet you often hear Swedes boasting of the superiority of travelling through Sweden on their excellent roads, and with their admirable posting! Government seems aware of its impolicy, and is adopting the soundest measures for its gradual abolition- the establishing of steam-boats on the canals and lakes, and of a coach on the road between Göttenburg and Stockholm. In 1832, the number of horses kept in Sweden was 385,059, and of oxen 262,581, while the quantity of grain, including potatoes, put into the ground as seed, was 1,168,328 imperial quarters, that is, one working beast, horse or ox, was kept for working less than two quarters of seed; or, taking the horses alone, one horse was kept for every three quarters sowing of land, which may be 4 acres overhead of arable. People do not keep what they do not need. All farm work in Sweden must

Maoll

be done at once, and any proportions of working stock to arable land in our climate, are inapplicable here; but with all this admitted, the keeping of 6 horses in Sweden to do the agricultural work which one horse does in a year in Scotland, viz. his half of 50 acres of arable land- and the horses in Sweden are quite as good on an average as the common Scotch,-shows that the horses are needed for some other use; that the farmer must keep superfluous horses, under this miserable system, to meet his posting duty, and get through his farm work in due season. What would an English or Scotch farmer say if he were compelled to send his servant, or perhaps his son or daughter, to the next gin shop, with his horse and cart, to wait for three or four hours two or three times a week, for the call of travellers; and if one comes, to be obliged to allow him to drive the horse to the next stage, his own servant sitting behind, for a mock price of a penny a mile for the horse, and nothing for the use of his cart and harness? It is ridiculous to hear a people talk of constitutional rights and free institutions, among whom the first of all rights and the foundation of all the right of every man to his own property, time, and industry, without infringement, on any pretext, for the convenience of others, not even of the public but for the fullest compensation and on the most urgent state-necessity - is so little understood or felt. This system prevails also in Norway, but with the alleviation that the farmer is only obliged to send his horses on getting three hours' previous notice from the traveller; but

not to keep horses waitng at the station as hal hester; is paid for detention; is paid for the use of his harness and cart; and is paid more than double of the Swedish price per mile for his horse. But still it is an abuse inconsistent with all freedom or rights of property. The morality of societies is much connected with a deep and strong sense of the sacredness, the inviolability, of property and of private rights among men.

July 26.I set off this morning early from Sundsval, and passed a loading place of an English house in the timber trade, Messrs. Dixons', at which the enterprise and good order of an English establishment of business struck me in passing, particu larly here in the midst of the forest. The English do business more cheaply than any mercantile people in Europe. Here every little grocer, who perhaps does not turn over goods in the course of the year to the value of a couple of thousand pounds sterling, must have his fuldmagtigt, that is, a clerk, with his procuration to transact all business in his name; his cashier, his bookkeeper, and a host of under clerks, who, although their salaries may be small, must live upon him. The Englishman has enough, and never too much of such, and never trusts the main strings of his business out of his own hands.

The country is covered with the same dark green mantle of small stinted pine, with here and there a cultivated township of land cut out in it, seldom exceeding 200 acres studded with grey wooden rickety houses. There is not the appearance of thrift and