The old world and its ways

by William Jennings Bryan

Our boat stopped at Helsingfors for a few hours, and we had an opportunity to visit the principal points of interest in the capital of Finland. It is a substantial and prosperous looking city with large school houses, attractive public buildings and commodious churches. We passed several small parks where children were playing and where numerous comfortable seats beckoned the weary to rest beneath the shade. I confess to a partiality for the small city park; it is much better to have these breathing spaces so scattered about through densely populated sections that the children, as well as the adults, can find in them a daily refuge than to have the entire park fund lavished upon suburban parks, which can only be visited occasionally. It is a pity that space is not more often reserved for these parks in the laying out of towns, for the ground not only becomes more valuable in proportion as these small parks are the more needed, but the opening of them in the heart of a city brings a large unearned increment to those who own land adjacent to them.

We could not help noticing the contrast between the market of Helsingfors and those which we visited in Asia. At the former neatly dressed peasants, men and women, exposed for sale from the end of their carts a bountiful supply of vegetables, meats, butter, eggs and cheese. The eggs were stamped with the name of the owner and the date of laying, the butter was packed in wooden buckets of various sizes, and the cheese was of many varieties. Some of the carts were filled with stacks of black bread baked in large flat cakes. The radishes presented a temptation that I was not able to withstand; the fondness for them, restrained during the months of travel through the Orient, overcame me, and at the risk of being thought extravagant, I purchased five dozen at a gross outlay of about five cents and lived high until they were all gone.

KING OSCAR OF SWEDEN.

The Finns are rejoicing over the autonomy recently secured, and they have signalized their partial independence by creating a single parliamentary body whose representatives are elected by the entire population, male and female, above the age of twenty-four. No one can understand the persistency with which the Finns have struggled for constitutional government without recalling that, as a part of Sweden, their country long enjoyed the right to representation in the nation's councils. The people have always resented Russian methods, and only a few years ago the governor general sent from St. Petersburg was assassinated by a young Finn who, having thus given expression to his nation's hatred of despotism, immediately took his own life. The death of the governor was followed by the suspension of such few privileges as the people had been enjoying, but when last year the whole of Russia seemed about to rise in rebellion, the czar announced his willingness to grant all that was asked, and now one can travel through Finland without being harassed by soldiers or bothered about passports.

If Constantinople can claim to be the natural capital of the eastern hemisphere, Stockholm can with equal justice claim to be its natural summer resort. It is situated at a point where a chain of lakes pours its flood into the Baltic, so that the citizens of Sweden's capital have their choice between the fresh water and the salt. As the lakes and the sea are filled with innumerable islands, each family can have one for itself. Summer homes are probably more numerous near Stockholm, in proportion to the population, than anywhere else, because during the winter months the people live in flats. One is immediately struck with the compactness of the city and with the absence of single dwellings surrounded by yards. Owing to the severe cold and the long, dark days of winter, the people huddle together in great blocks and thus economize fuel, and they are at the same time close to their work. As soon as spring opens there is a general movement toward the islands, and as we approached Stockholm from the Baltic and left it through the lakes, we saw a great many summer cottages and watched the boats carrying their cargoes of passengers to and fro.

Sweden's lakes are so numerous and so large that about eight per cent of her entire area is given up to these internal waterways, and they probably account for the fact that her people had a large domestic commerce before the era of railroads. These lakes are so situated that by connecting them by canals water transit has been secured between Stockholm on the east coast and Gothenburg on the west. The boat trip through these lakes and canals is one of the most pleasant to be found in Europe.

The Swedes who have come to the United States are such excellent farmers that I was surprised to find but twelve per cent of the area of Sweden devoted to agriculture and fifty-one per cent described as woodland. Only fifty-five per cent of the population is now engaged in farming, the proportion having fallen from seventy-two per cent since 1870, while the proportion engaged in other industries has risen from fifteen to twenty-seven per cent.

Lumbering, fishing and shipping each gives employment to a large number of men, and iron mining, long a leading industry, is still important, although, owing to the development of mines elsewhere, Sweden now furnishes but one per cent of the entire output of ore as against ten per cent in the eighteenth century. The fact that she had such an abundant supply of the raw material early gave her a conspicuous place in iron manufactures, and the familiarity with this metal may be due to the fact that Sweden was quick to take advantage of the railroad, the telegraph and the telephone. In electrical appliances she now claims a second place among the nations. A large use has also been made of the water power with which the country abounds, notably at Norrkoping, where an industrial exposition is now in progress.