306 Ten Years in Sweden. 



for less. The person hiring one of these unfortunates has to pro- 

 vide clothes as well as food, and they are usually well treated, as the 

 Swede is naturally a kind master." 



The ecclesiastical arrangements of Sweden differ from our own. 

 The parishioners in certain cases choose their clergymen, and the 

 clergy of a district choose their bishop. A curate begins with a 

 stipend of about £10 and his keep, and his first living may be 

 worth about £40 a year, the income being generally derived from 

 a small farm, together with yearly payments of butter, etc., from 

 the parishioners. Bishops are obtained as economically as parish 

 clergymen, and even the Archbishop of Upsala, the Primate of the 

 Swedish church, has an income of only £1200 a year. This mode- 

 rate pay does not prevent the clergy from being held in high esti- 

 mation, and they exert a powerful influence over the domestic life 

 of all classes. Education is cheap in Sweden, and while the working 

 men are better taught than our own, the middle-class have two 

 good universities at Lund and Upsala, in which the total expendi- 

 ture is from £3 to £4 per month. 



"With regard to the cost of living in Sweden, the " Old Bush- 

 man" remarks, that a man with a family, who cannot do without 

 English comforts, can live as cheap at home ; but, he adds, a 

 sportsman can do well with £50 a year, if he hires a room and 

 buys his own pro visions ; enjoying considerable facilities for obtaining 

 various sorts of game. Ample details are given for those who con- 

 template a visit to the country, and it is evident that much enjoy- 

 ment may be obtained at a moderate cost. In 1864 mutton was 

 4<d. per lb., beef 3d., pork 4<d., chickens 9d. each, eggs, Id. per 

 dozen in summer, oatmeal, Is. for twenty pounds. The meat, 

 except the mutton, is not praised, and the ordinary bread of the 

 country would scarcely commend itself to English tastes. It is 

 *' made of hard rye, in thin cakes as large as a plate. This is hung 

 up, and will keep any length of time. In some large houses they 

 bake only twice a year ; but they can also make just as good light 

 wheat bread as in England." The last announcement carries con- 

 solation for travellers, as we think most of them — from this country 

 at least — would be loth to interfere with the valuable keeping pro- 

 perties the native article is said to possess. 



With many points of resemblance, the Swedes and the English 

 have also marked differences in habit, partly, no doubt, resulting 

 from the peculiarities of the climate in which the two nations 

 live. Swedish boys are not fond of the athletic games that delight 

 our youth, and their young men have no substitutes for the 

 cricketing, boating, etc., that ours judiciously practise. With us 

 winter is a season of physical activity for the well-to-do classes. 

 In Sweden it is the reverse. The country gentleman has no hunting 

 or shooting at that season, he rarely walks a mile, and the houses 

 are made un wholesomely hot by stopping ventilation and heating 

 the stoves. 



We have in the preceding remarks afforded our readers a general 

 outline of what a capital book the " Old Bushman" has made, and, 

 as his matter is well arranged and condensed, he has contrived, in 



