Art school, a Lunatic
Asylum, an Astronomical Observatory, and various charitable
institutions; nor should we forget to mention its admirably
conducted Botanical Garden situated about a mile from the town,
containing among other interesting varieties a very finely-arranged
collection of Alpine plants from Spitzbergen and Iceland. The town
has its Casino, Tivoli, or whatever we please to call it; the good
citizens here have named it the Klinkenberg. It is a place of
out-door amusement for old and young, where grown up children ride
wooden-horses and participate in childish games with apparently as
much zest as the little ones. Here we found peep-shows,
pistol-galleries, Russian slides, a small theatre, and cafes where
were dispensed beer, music, and Swedish punch,--this last very sweet
and very intoxicating! The acrobat, with his two small boys in
silver-spangles and flesh-colored tights, was present and especially
active, besides the conventional individual who eats tow and blows
fire from his mouth. On the occasion of our visit the last named
individual came to grief, and burned his nether lip severely.

The commerce of Christiania is increasing annually. Over two thousand
vessels were entered at its custom house during the year 1885. There
are regular lines of steamers established between here and London,
Hull, Glasgow, Copenhagen, and other ports, which transact a large
amount of business in the freight department, with a considerable
incidental passenger trade. The harbor is frozen over at least three
months of the year, though that of Hammerfest, situated a thousand
miles farther north on the coast of Norway, is never closed by ice,
owing to the genial influence of the Gulf Stream,--an agent so
potent as to modify the temperature of the entire coast of
Scandinavia on its western border. Wenham Lake Ice, which was
originally and for some years shipped from Massachusetts to England,
now comes direct from the Christiania fjord! An English company has
long owned a lake near Droebak, which yields them an ample supply of
ice annually. The London ice-carts still bear the name of "Wenham
Lake," but the ice comes from Norway. We were told that the quantity
shipped for use in England increases yearly as ice grows to be more
and more of a domestic necessity.

The Storthing's Hus is quite a handsome and imposing building, of
original design in the Romanesque and Byzantine style, facing the
Carl Johannes Square, the largest