RAILROAD STATISTICS. 449 



consequent happiness. Still more exacting is the home care of cattle in winter, 

 when much of the food must be specially prepared. On some soil that here 

 would be condemned as good for nothing, fair crops are grown and harvested in 

 the short summer, while in the southern provinces the yield is equal to that of 

 model farms in America. 



The maritime statistics of the two countries, and of Norway in particular, 

 are simply staggering. Last year more than a thousand Norwegian vessels en- 

 tered the port of New York, and seven times as many were busy elsewhere. More 

 than sixty thousand sailors man these vessels, and yet Norwegian sailors are nu- 

 merous in the merchant navy of almost every other country. About a hundred 

 and twenty thousand Norwegians are engaged in the fisheries. The author mi- 

 nutely describes the great fishing stations of Norway, and here, as elsewhere, is 

 struck by the attention paid by the government to all its resources. Every fish- 

 ing station has a superintendent, appointed by the government, and the date of 

 beginning the season's work, the time of starting out for the day, and even the 

 places in which the fish are prepared for market, are determined by him ; but the 

 officer's duties seem to consist principally in preventing confusion or bad feel- 

 ing. No liquor is sold at fishing stations, and yet the men, who are directly in 

 the path of all the "American weather" that crosses the Atlantic, are a remarka- 

 bly healthy and vigorous set of fellows ; they wear good clothes, too, which is 

 not done by fishermen in general. To their abstemiousness must be attributed 

 the lack of strife; during a long visit to the fishing stations the author saw no 

 fighting, and did not hear a single oath. No fishing is permitted on Sunday. 

 Drunkenness and profanity are rare everywhere in Scandinavia; there seems to 

 be absolutely no idle, non-producing, dangerous class, such as is the mainstay 

 of vice in every other European country. At fairs and feasts there is a great deal 

 of drinking, but the period is brief, and the fun never culminates in fighting. — 

 John Habberton, in Harper' s Magazine for November. 



RAILROAD STATISTICS. 



Poor's Manual gives some interesting railroad statistics. The mileage at the 

 close of iS8o, in this country, was 93,671, a gain of 8.2 per cent, for the year; 

 the gross earnings were $615,401,931; net earnings, $255,193,426; each show- 

 ing an increase of 16 per cent, over the previous year. The dividends amounted 

 to $77,115,411, a gain of 25 per cent, compared with 1879 — while the increased 

 cost shown a gain of 5.4 per cent, over the year 1879. The growth of our rail- 

 road system during the past ten years has been very rapid. In 1870 there were 

 52,914 miles of railroad, and in 1880 there were 93,671. The gross earnings in 

 1870 were $9.30 per capita; in 1880, $12.27 P^^^ capita, showing that while the 

 population has increased 23 per cent, in ten years, the gross earnings on railroads 

 have increased in the same time 74 per cent. The freight charges on railroads 

 have been reduced in that time from an average on the great leading lines of 



