s, as we had daily
evidence. Six years ago the consumption of brandy throughout the kingdom
was _nine gallons_ for every man, woman, and child annually; but it has
decreased considerably since then, mainly through the manufacture of
beer and porter. "_Bajerskt ol_" (Bavarian beer) is now to be had
everywhere, and is rapidly becoming the favourite drink of the people.
Sweden and the United States will in the end establish the fact that
lager beer is more efficacious in preventing intemperance than any
amount of prohibitory law. Brandy-drinking is still, nevertheless, one
of the greatest curses of Sweden. It is no unusual thing to see boys of
twelve or fourteen take their glass of fiery _finkel_ before dinner. The
celebrated Swedish punch, made of arrack, wine, and sugar, is a
universal evening drink, and one of the most insidious ever invented,
despite its agreeable flavor. There is a movement in favor of total
abstinence, but it seems to have made but little progress, except as it
is connected with some of the new religious ideas, which are now
preached throughout the country.

I have rarely witnessed a sadder example of ruin, than one evening in a
Stockholm cafe. A tall, distinguished-looking man of about forty, in an
advanced state of drunkenness, was seated at a table opposite to us. He
looked at me awhile, apparently endeavoring to keep hold of some thought
with which his mind was occupied. Rising at last he staggered across the
room, stood before me, and repeated the words of Bellman:

"Sa vandra vara stora man'
Fran ljuset ned til skuggan."[C]

A wild, despairing laugh followed the lines, and he turned away, but
came back again and again to repeat them. He was a nobleman of excellent
family, a man of great intellectual attainments, who, a few years ago,
was considered one of the most promising young men in Sweden. I saw him
frequently afterwards, and always in the same condition, but he never
accosted me again. The Swedes say the same thing of Bellman himself, and
of Tegner, and many others, with how much justice I care not to know,
for a man's faults are to be accounted for to God, and not to a
gossiping public.

FOOTNOTES:

[B] The substance of the foregoing paragraph was contained in a letter
published in _The New-York Tribune_ during my travels in the North, and
which was afterwards translated and commented upon by the Swedish
papers. The latter charged me with having drawn too dark a picture a