esota my chief object was to get the emigrants
away from the large cities and make them settle on the unoccupied lands
in the northwest, where the climate was suitable to them, and where it
was morally certain that every industrious man or family would acquire
independence sooner and better than in the crowded cities of the east. I
never attempted to induce anyone to immigrate, but tried to reach those
only who had already made up their minds to do so, and the only people
that I ever induced to leave their mother country were a number of poor
servants and tenants among my own or my parents' acquaintances for whom
I myself paid partly or wholly the cost of the journey.

CHAPTER IX.

Visit to Sweden in 1868-1869--The Object of my Journey--Experiences and
Observations During the Same--Difference Between American and Swedish
Customs--My Birth-place--Arrival and Visit There--Visit to
Christianstad--Visit to Stockholm--The Swedish Parliament--My Return
to America--Reflections on and Impressions of the Condition of the
Bureaucracy of Sweden.

For many years I had desired to revisit the home of my childhood, and in
December, 1868, saying good-bye to family and friends, I set out alone
on my first visit to Sweden, after an absence of nearly eighteen years.
The chief object of the journey was recreation and pleasure; the second
object to make the resources of Minnesota better known among the farming
and laboring classes, who had made up their minds to emigrate. This
visit to the fatherland marked an important era in my life. Being only
eighteen years old when I first left it, my impressions were vague and
imperfect. Nor had I seen much of that beautiful country until my return
in 1868. I shall now endeavor to relate some of those impressions and
experiences as faithfully as memory permits, and should I have to record
some things that will offend certain classes of my countrymen, I do it
with no unfriendliness or lack of kindly feeling, but simply in the
interest of truth; for after having been a true and loyal American
citizen for nearly forty years I still cling to Sweden, its people and
institutions, with the affection of a child toward its mother.

When I left Sweden in 1851 there were no railroads. On my return the 23d
day of December, 1868, via England, Germany and Copenhagen, I landed at
Malmoe just in time to walk to the railroad station and take the train
to Christianstad. The beautiful station with i