In Sweden doctors never send bills to their patients, but trust entirely to their generosity. Each family has an attending physician, who expects them to pay him by the year for his services, according to their wealth and the amount of attention they receive. Ten dollars a year in our money is a good fee; one hundred dollars is princely. At the beginning of the year you put the amount in an envelope and send it to the doctor by a messenger with your card. He sends back his card with an acknowledgment of thanks and the compliments of the season. It is very bad form to talk about it, although grateful patients often write their physicians affectionate letters of gratitude for his devotion and the benefit he has brought them. It is a good deal like the relation between a minister and his parishioners in other countries, and the annual contribution for the support of the doctor is just as voluntary as the contribution to the treasury of the church. If there is any reason why one should feel grateful to the doctors; if you or your children have suffered a severe illness and he has pulled you through, he expects a present in addition to the annual honorarium, just as you would send the minister a present after a marriage or a funeral or some other special occasion at which his services are required. The amount you pay depends upon your ability and the value of his services, but it is a violation of the most sacred canon of professional etiquette for a doctor to ask compensation or question the amount he receives. He keeps no accounts of his visits and no books. If a stranger or an acquaintance who does not contribute regularly makes one call or two upon the doctor to ask his advice or a prescription, he leaves something on the table, but it would be equivalent to an insult if he should ask for a bill.
When a person is very sick, he is taken to a hospital. Sweden has some of the best hospitals in the world. His own doctor looks after him there, assisted by the house physician and nurses, who expect fees, but the regular doctor gets none. He supervises the treatment and acts as adviser to the house physician.
The government pays subsidies to doctors in remote parts of the country, just as it pays the salaries of the ministers where the people are so poor that they can not support a doctor and a parson. In fact, all the clergymen of the established church are paid by the government and are government officials. The members of their parishes give them presents, something on the donation party order, because their salaries are small, and if there happen to be rich men in the parish, it is their custom to send around a handsome present to the minister's wife or to himself on Christmas Day.
The Swedes have a short summer, and so far as possible spend it in the open air. Every citizen of Stockholm who can afford it has a place in the country, no matter how humble or primitive it may be, and if he can not afford a cabin, he pitches a tent in the woods under the pine trees, and if necessary cooks his own meals. The banks of the lakes and rivers throughout the entire kingdom—and there are more than 1,400 lakes in Sweden and 1,700 islands in the Stockholm Skärgard—are surrounded by such dwellings and camps, for the Swedes love the water. Those who are compelled to remain in town take their meals and spend their evenings at the open-air cafes, which are found in every part of the city with bands of music, and take daily excursions on the boats which ply through the fjord and the lakes which encircle the town. In the suburbs are circuses, open-air theaters, concert gardens, and other forms of entertainments, simple and serious. A number of fine restaurants are maintained in the parks, where people can get a good dinner and spend the evening under the cool foliage, listening to an orchestral concert or a band. Every form of outdoor amusement is furnished, and the people eat, drink, and are merry, making the most of their time from June to September before the long and dreary winter comes upon them.
The working classes have their simple amusements also, and during the summer evenings in every village there is music and dancing, even if an accordion or jewsharp is the only instrument to be obtained. The national dances are quite energetic, and furnish a form of exercise which lazy people would not admire, but both the men and women of Sweden are famous for their muscular strength, and the young woman who can dance down her companions is as much of a hero as the champion wrestler of the town. Those who can not enjoy the opportunity of visiting rural Sweden will find in the suburbs of Stockholm, at the favorite resort and place of amusement of the common people, a perfect representation of Swedish country life. It is called Skansen, and is rural Sweden in miniature. It is a patriotic and scientific enterprise, conceived and undertaken by the late Dr. Artur Hazelius, an eminent ethnologist, for the purpose of preserving the habits and customs of the Scandinavian races. In no country of Europe, excepting perhaps Russia and Turkey, have the people adhered to the manner and costumes of their fathers so tenaciously as in Sweden, and the life of past generations is preserved in its picturesqueness. The conservatism of the people, their tenacious preference for their own ways and means has kept out innovations, and very few changes have been made since the beginning of the eighteenth century. But fearing that the peasants of Sweden, like all other peoples, would sooner or later surrender to modern fashions, Dr. Hazelius attempted to collect at Skansen actual types representing every industry, activity, and national trait. His thought was expressed in a motto inscribed over one of the gates of this outdoor museum:
"The day will come when all our gold will not be sufficient to buy an accurate picture of the times long past."
He procured from the king a rocky plateau on the edge of a royal park known as Djurgarden, covered with crippled pines and resembling the wild, uncultivated, neglected landscape in Dalecaria or Norrland, the two most interesting portions of Sweden. By careful landscape gardening, without destroying its natural beauty, he introduced broad paths, restaurants, cafes, band stands, and other places for the merry to meet and hold their festivals, and for the students to sing their songs, and he reserved a part of the grounds in its natural condition, where the lovers of nature can find a quiet retreat among the gloom of a pine grove. It has become the most popular resort in Sweden, particularly in the long summer evenings, and when a man can not reach the country, Skansen is never too far. It is accessible by street-cars and by boats, and is not more than half an hour's walk from the palace.
Here the "folk festivals," for which the Swedish poets have composed their most beautiful songs, are held every spring; here the national holidays are celebrated as in olden times, both in summer and winter, and national customs are preserved with great care and amid surroundings that give them a realistic tone, like the true thing. Dr. Hazelius secured original types of peasant houses from every part of the country where they have individual or unique character. From the huts of the fishermen on the south coast of the Scandinavian peninsula to the camps of the Lapps in the frozen zone, every feature of Swedish country life is represented. The Lapps brought their dogs and reindeer, and live exactly as they do upon the snowy plains of the polar regions.
With the forty acres that compose the park are about one hundred and twenty-five people, living exactly as their forefathers lived and practicing the primitive customs that prevailed two centuries ago in the agricultural districts of the kingdom. They wear the same costumes, eat the same kind of food, use the same kind of dishes, and preserve so far as possible every feature of their daily life. Every one of the provinces of Sweden which has a distinctive dress or unique custom is represented by the actual people who have always lived that way. Every man and woman continues their former occupations. There is no theatrical business about it, no imitations on the grounds; everything is genuine.
Three or four times a week at sunset, after their daily work is done, the peasants gather for a dance at a central place, which is always surrounded by a large crowd of spectators, and is the greatest attraction of Skansen. On alternate nights the dancing is by the children, of whom there are thirty-seven under fifteen years of age living in the cabins with their parents, dressed just like their great-great-grandfathers and grand mothers when they were of the same age. The music for the dancing is furnished by old-fashioned instruments, and none but old-fashioned tunes are allowed. There is a society in Sweden known as Svenska Folkdansens Vänner for preserving the Swedish national peasant dances and for encouraging their use in the higher circles of society in preference to the French dances.