396 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences j Arts^ and Letters, 



Year. 



Total sales. 



No. arrested 

 for 



drunkenness. 



1892 

 18&3 

 1894 

 1S95 

 1896 

 1897 

 1S98 



834,123 litres 

 338,485 litres' 

 219,719 litres 

 301,951 litres 

 294,025 litres 

 351,059 litres 



690 



815 



948 



1,381 



1^866 



1,789 



Here, then, as in Stockholm and Gothenburg, we find not in- 

 creasing sobriety but increasing inebriety, larger sales of spirit- 

 nous liquors, and larger numbers of arrests for drunkenness. 



As to whether the above number of litres is a correct criterion 

 for the amount of spirituous liquors really consumed in Bergen, 

 it should be noted that statistics for separate cities give us in- 

 formation re2:ardinc: the sales bv the samla^s alone. While 

 it is true that in Bergen and in most of the other cities samlags 

 have had exclusive control over the retail and bar trade, whole- 

 sale merchants have, however, nearly ever^^vhere sold more or 

 less liquor directly to the consumers. This statement in regard 

 to wholesale merchants must, however, be taken with some 

 limitations. In the first place it is hardly true for Sweden at 

 all, for in that country the wholesale merchants have been bound 

 by law not to sell in quantities less than two hundred and forty 

 litres, an amount generally too large for individual purchase. 

 In the second place, the statement is true for Xorway only up to 

 the year 1896, when a new law went into force, which raised the 

 allovrable minimum purchase at wholesale from twenty litres 

 to the amount legitimized by the laws of Sweden. The 

 bearing of this change will be brought to our attention later. 



Another city which deserves separate attention is Christiania, 

 the capital of Xorway. It has now a population of about two 

 hundred and ten thousand. Samlags have operated there since 

 1885. In 1886 they sold 282,843 litres of spirituous liquors, 

 in 1891 they sold 396,368 litres. A knowledge of the amount 



