“Christopher Hansen Blum’s.”
“And those warehouses?”
“Christopher Hansen Blum’s.”
“And that fine lady?”
“Christopher Hansen Blum’s wife.”
“And the other fine lady, my fair travelling companion with the gauntlet kid gloves?”
“Christopher Hansen Blum’s niece.”
This modern Marquis of Carabas (vide Puss in Boots) is also, I understand, one of the chief promoters of the canal which is being quarried out of the solid rock between Skien and the Nord-Sö; the completion of which will admit of an uninterrupted steam traffic from this place to Hitterdal, at the northern end of that lake, and deep in the bowels of Thelemarken.
A great stir has been lately caused at Skien by the secession from the establishment of Gustav Adolph Lammers, the vicar of the place. The history of this gentleman is one of the many indications to be met with of this country having arrived at that period in the history of its civilization which the other countries of Europe have passed many years ago;—we mean the phase of the first development of religious dissent and a spirit of insubordination to the established traditions of the Church as by law established. We are transported to the days of Whitfield and Wesley. Lammers, who appears to be a sincere person, in spite of the variety of tales in circulation about him, commenced by inculcating greater strictness of conduct. He next declined to baptize children. This brought him necessarily into conflict with the church authorities, and the upshot was that he has seceded from the Church; together with a number of the fair sex, with whom he is a great favourite. The most remarkable part of the matter, however, is that he will apply, it is said, for a Government pension, like other retiring clergy. Whether the Storthing, within whose province all such questions come, will listen to any such thing remains to be seen.[2]