, and a deeper, warmer red on the cheeks than on those of the rosy
Swedes. The average height is, perhaps, not quite equal to that of the
latter race, but in physical vigor I can see no inferiority, and there
are among them many men of splendid stature, strength, and proportion.
Von Buch ascribes the marked difference of stature between the Finns and
the Lapps, both living under precisely the same influences of climate,
to the more cleanly habits of the former and their constant use of the
vapor-bath; but I have always found that blood and descent, even where
the variation from the primitive stock is but slight, are more potent
than climate or custom. The Finns have been so long christianised and
civilised (according to the European idea of civilisation), that
whatever peculiar characteristic they retain must be looked for mainly
in those habits which illustrate their mental and moral natures. In
their domestic life, they correspond in most particulars to the Swedes
of the same class.

They are passionate, and therefore prone to excesses--imaginative, and
therefore, owing to their scanty education, superstitious. Thus the
religious element, especially the fantastic aberrations thereof
engendered by Lestadius and other missionaries, while it has tended
greatly to repress the vice, has in the same proportion increased the
weakness. Drunkenness, formerly so prevalent as to be the curse of
Lapland, is now exceedingly rare, and so are the crimes for which it is
responsible. The most flagrant case which has occurred in the
neighborhood of Muoniovara for some years past, was that of a woman who
attempted to poison her father-in-law by mixing the scrapings of lucifer
matches with his coffee, in order to get rid of the burden of supporting
him. Although the evidence was very convincing, the matter was hushed
up, in order to avoid a scandal upon the Church, the woman being a
steadfast member. In regard to drunkenness, I have heard it stated that,
while it was formerly no unusual thing for a Finn to be frozen to death
in this condition, the same catastrophe never befell a Lapp, owing to
his mechanical habit of keeping his arms and feet in motion--a habit
which he preserves even while utterly stupefied and unconscious.

A singular spiritual epidemic ran through Polar Finland three or four
years ago, contemporary with the religious excitement in Norwegian
Lapland, and partly occasioned by the same reckless men. It consisted of
sobb