“Well, that may be,” said the Parson. “I have not experienced enough to gainsay you; but you must admit that as far as simple drinking goes, the two nations have the organ of drunkenness pretty equally developed.”
“I should think it must be a barrel organ, then,” said the Captain, “if we are to judge by the quantity it contains.”
“Thank your stars it has got a good many stops in it. The Scandinavian does not drink irregularly, like your people whom you can never reckon upon for two days together. He has his days of solemn drunkenness—some of them political, such as the coronation; or the king’s name day; or, here, in Norway, the signing of their cursed constitution. Some of them, again, are religious—such as Christmas, and Easter, and Whitsuntide: these are days in which all Scandinavia gets drunk as one man. And there are a few little domestic anniversaries besides—such as christenings and weddings; but, this is all, except a chance affair, like this; so that, by a glance at the calendar, and a little inquiry into a man’s private history, you may always know when to find him sober, and fit for work.”
“Sober, meaning three or four glasses of brandy?” said the Parson.
“Yes,” said Birger. “He seldom goes beyond that, on ordinary days; and, therefore, on festivals like this, I think him very well entitled to make up for it.”
“I think, though,” said the Parson, “when I was in Sweden, last year, I did see such things as stocks for drunkards, at some of the church doors.”
“Yes, you did, at all of them; but, you never saw any one in them. How is a mayor to order a man into the stocks, for drunkenness, when the chances are, that he was just as drunk himself on the very same occasion?”
“How do you account for this universal system of drinking spirits?” said the Captain.
“It is easy enough to account for it,” said the Parson; for Birger rather shirked the question. “Every landed proprietor has a right to a private still; the duty is a farthing a gallon, carriage is difficult, and brandy is much more portable than corn. Will not this account for some of it? I do not happen to know what may be the return for Sweden; but, for Norway, it is somewhat over five million gallons a-year, in a country which does not grow nearly enough of corn to support itself; and this, as the population does not come up to a million and a-half, gives three and a-half gallons per Christian, to every man, woman, and child, in the country.”