Cousin-hunting in Scandinavia

by Mary Wilhelmine Williams

Upon the shores of Lake Vettern, near which our train passed, Ellen Key now lives—lives an abundant life. In fact, the motto over her doorway of “Strand,” her home, is “Memento vivere”—Remember to live. And by her will she has provided in a lovely way to contribute the influence of her personality for mortal good as long as possible after she has gone to join the “choir invisible.” Her beautiful home is to be left just as it is, except for her physical presence, in control of a body of trustees who will invite working women, sufficiently intelligent to appreciate the culture of “Strand,” to come, four at a time, each to spend a month there between April and October, as “the guests of Ellen Key.”

My memory of the long journey across Sweden will always be pleasanter because Fröken Nordstern had a part in it. She was on a very hurried—for Sweden—business trip to the capital and I have not seen her since we parted at the station here. It would be a distinct pleasure to meet her again some time.

Now for Stockholm. It is perfectly charming, whether seen by night or day; but I saw its night beauty first. When the train pulled in, though it was past nine o’clock, darkness had scarcely settled down. The city lights, however, had been turned on, and they glimmered in zig-zag lines across the many canals over which the train rumbled, producing a weird, fairyland effect which quite excited me and promised new interests.

At the station, hotel agents were lined up in three rows, but they were so numerous that I was bewildered and sought help of a helmeted policeman who stood near at hand. “Temperance Hotel”! he called, and a properly labeled agent popped out of a line. In a twinkling I was seated in a drosky and on my way. The horse wore an arch of bells which tinkled festively as we drove through the dark, high-walled “foreign-looking” streets; the memory of the long, pleasant day was in the background of my mind; the charm of the first sight of the glimmering, zig-zag lights of Stockholm was in the fore; and I felt exactly as if I were some one else—a character, perhaps, in a story-book with a good ending.

But when the next morning dawned golden and glorious I realized to the full that I was something more enviable than that; I was a happy woman on a vacation in the land of the Swede.

Stockholm has not such a marked personality, such charming quaintness, as Copenhagen; but it is more, much more, beautiful, than Denmark’s capital. If the site had been selected, and the city all planned out by a modern landscape architect, it could scarcely be more charming. The place, however, is nearly seven centuries old and its founder, the Swedish warrior, Birger Jarl, was primarily looking for a good harbor, easily defended, when he selected the passageway between Lake Mälar and the Baltic, and proceeded to fortify the rocky, woodsy islands. It is this alternation of rugged, heavily forested island and mainland, and lake and river and sea which has given this “Venice of the North” a setting much more beautiful than Venice itself. But the hand and brain of the beauty-loving Swede has contributed greatly to the natural attractions. Most of the streets are wide, well-paved, and clean. Here and there, carefully distributed over the city, are little parks, bright with grass and trees and flowers, and further adorned by handsome fountains and by statues of men who have contributed toward the up-building of Sweden. The tasteful bridges which span the broad canals also add their share to the variety. And the buildings, especially the public ones, in many cases combine in an interesting manner an artistic charm with a dignified reserve characteristic of the Scandinavian north.

When in Germany I think that I told you about the “trinkhallen.” The more temperate Swedes have “vattenbutiker” (water shops, or stores). These are little booths, generally at street corners, where one can buy mineral waters, and various other temperance drinks, and little cakes; and may consume them out in the open air, perched on the high seats beside the counter. Vattenbutiker are as strictly respectable as automats, with which Stockholm is adequately supplied.

Are you surprised to learn that Sweden has preferred “water shops” to “drinking halls”? If so, I must tell you that from being among the most drunken and intemperate parts of Europe, as they were fifty years ago, the Scandinavian lands have become temperate and are the leaders in the European “dry” movement. Under Gustav III, who reigned in the last part of the eighteenth century, the manufacture of alcoholic liquors was made a government monopoly. This made the Swedes heavy drinkers, and soon a state of affairs existed which was heading Sweden rapidly towards destruction. In the other Scandinavian countries drunkenness and demoralization were almost as prevalent. But, in 1865, through the efforts of Peter Wieselgren of Gothenburg, the so-called Gothenburg system was introduced. This system provided that the monopoly of liquor distillation be given over to responsible philanthropic companies which controlled the sale and were permitted to retain only five per cent. of the profits from the traffic; the remainder must go to objects of public service. Norway, shortly afterwards, introduced a similar method of regulation and restriction. To me, one very interesting fact about the system is that part of the profits goes towards teaching the evils of intemperance. In Norway, the profits also go towards the building of better roads, the support of the National Theatre in Christiania, the upkeep of children’s hospitals, and other similar useful purposes.

The other Scandinavian lands were promptly influenced by the reform movement in Sweden and Norway; and all over Scandinavia increasingly severe restrictive laws were passed from time to time. The Scandinavian countries are all now well on the highroad towards total prohibition. Indeed, Iceland, Greenland, and the Faroes are teetotalers. Norway is almost completely under local option; Sweden is well in line; and sentiment is rapidly growing in Denmark. What is of special encouragement to a democrat from the “land of the free” is the fact that the Scandinavian people themselves have come to see the evil of the drink habit, and have cooperated to abolish it. In the Scandinavian lands, you must know, the government is “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” about as completely as in the United States. I am not at all certain that it is not more so.

Lest I have deluded you into believing that, in consequence of their freedom from evil practices, the Scandinavians have fully qualified for the harps and crowns of the New Jerusalem, I hasten to inform you that Scandinavia is in the grip of the tobacco habit; the people smoke like bad chimneys. And what is worse, the cigarette is the favorite form of the “weed.” All seem to smoke it except the babies. Small boys scarcely in their teens puff lustily at cigarettes; and I have seen several respectable-looking women smoking in the open-air cafés. Among women, however, the practice is limited to the upper middle class and the upper class.