, or by tramway, at any hour of the day or evening.

No population known to the author is so thoroughly devoted to public
amusement as are the citizens of the Swedish capital during the warm
season; the brief summer is indeed made the most of by all classes in
the enjoyment of out-door life. Beginning at an early hour of the day
and continuing until past midnight, gayety reigns supreme from the
middle of June until the end of August. To a stranger it seems to be
one ceaseless holiday, leading one to ask what period the people
devote to their business occupations. It is surprising to observe how
many theatres, circuses, concerts, fairs, casinos, field sports and
garden entertainments are liberally supported by a population of less
than two hundred thousand. At night the tide of life flows fast and
furious until the small hours, the town and its environs being ablaze
with gas and electric lights. The little omnibus steamers which flit
about like fire-flies are, like the tramways, taxed to their utmost
capacity, while the air is full of music from military bands. It is
the summer gayety of the Champs Elysees thrice multiplied by a
community which does not number one tenth of the aggregated
population of the great French capital. Not one but every day in the
week forms a link in the continuous chain of revelling hours, until
on the Sabbath the gayety culminates in a grand fete day of
pleasure-outings for men, women, and children. Scores of steamers
gayly dressed in flags and crowded with passengers start in the early
morning of this day for excursions on Lake Maelaren, or to visit some
pleasure resort on the Baltic, while the Deer Park and public gardens
of the city resound all day and night with mirth and music.

The Royal Opera House is a plain substantial structure on the
Gustaf-Adolf-Torg, built by Gustavus III. in 1775, and will seat
fifteen hundred persons. A music-loving Swede told us of the debut of
Jenny Lind years ago in this dramatic temple, and also described that
of Christine Nilsson, which occurred more recently. The excellent
acoustic properties of the Stockholm Opera House are admitted by
famous vocalists to be nearly unequalled. It was here, at a gay
masquerade ball on the morning of March 15, 1792, that Gustavus III.
was fatally wounded by a shot from an assassin, one of the
conspirators among the nobility. Our place of sojourn while in
Stockholm was at the Hotel Rydberg, which overlooks the
Gustaf-Adolf