I.AING'■; TOUR IN SWEDEN..

Toit essential difference between LAING'S lies; (leave in Nor.

way and his Tour in Swaden may be thus indicated—he wrote at book on Norwav because he had lived there ; he treat to Sweden to write a book.

The avowed purpose of this tour was to gather " filets or ob- servations from which to appreviate and describe the advance of society towards a higher condition in morals, laws, good govern- ment, physical wellbeing, and civilization." as well as to collect ordinary facts ot'connnon occurrence in the country, and to draw frosts them obvious conclusions on the state of' its inhabitants:" attack which the author has fulfilled to a certain extent, and perhaps as well as could be done by under the circumstances. But neither powers, experience, nor ability, can supply the place of slowly-gathered ma- terials, or do the work of time. After reaching Sweden by the usual

route of Hamburg and Copenhagen, Mr. LAING sojourned a short time at Stockholm, probably mixing in society, reading the news- papers, and examining the national statistics: but at Christiana (the capital of.NorWay) he spent a whole winter. From Stockholm he took a trip in a steam-boat to Umea, in West Bothnia ; drove inland as far as the roads.would let him; and returned to Stock- holm by land : which is just the same as if a foreigner should go

i

from London to Hull by steam, and come back n a gig. Ile further ran across -the Baltic to the curious Isle of Gothland ; visited a gentleman farmer there ; looked at his land; inquired the price of farms and produce ; and examined Wigsby, the capital— the whilom mart of the North, and the precursor of the Hanseatic Towns. But in Norway, he spent a summer as a traveller; a winter as an observer, and student of its language and institutions, in the house of a provincial officer of eminence ; and he lived there a whole year as a firmer and man of business. The cream of this experience filled a volume on Norway, without previous design or effort : he has been compelled to eke out the matter for Sweden, by a sort of vignette of Hamburg and Denmark, and two or three tail-pieces, on the Royal Family of Sweden, and a sketch of their policy towards Norway,—this last beina° about the fullest and most satisffictory piece of writing in the book, except the incidental sketches, taken fresh from nature.

The defect of the work is a manufactured, or at least a disqui- sitional character, in many places ; possessing skill, ability, and of informing value, but wanting both the spirit and the interest which result from facts derived from life. In despite of an education co- extensive with the nation, and a church establishment rigidly atten- tive after its way, the Swedes, Mr. LAING asserts, are the lowest in the moral scale of all the nations•ef Europe. This judgment,how- ever, is not formed from any thing which he saw, but from a comparison of national statistics of crime : important and worthy of consideration, no doubt, but available in England without going to Sweden : whilst the superiority of police in one country, the exactness with which facts are registered, and other circumstances, may detract very greatly from the conclusion. We cannot, be the array of tables what they may, believe that Sweden is lowerin the moral scale than Spain and Portugal—whether we speak of im- morality or of positive crime. The cause of this alleged immorality, Mr. LAING attributes to -effete institutions, which having :outgrown their uses, now only produce class monopolies, corrupting those who profit by them and oppressing the rest of the community ; and to laws opposed to the spirit of the age, and only fitted for a totally different state of so- ciety. The hitter View is supported by various abuses, which fell Under his own observation : but the former is deduced from statis- tics, the population returns, and the Red Book. These deductions are, however, curious and informing, and the points often acutely put ; as in this

SUMMARY OF TIIE SWEDISH CONSTITUENT POWERS.

The Swedish Diet meets in four separate chambers—that of nobles, of clergy, of peasants, of burgesses ; and every measure has to pass through each chain- -bet and its committees separately, and is adopted or rejected by the plurality of chambers. The best idea of the real and practical working of the Swedish constitution may be drawn from an analysis of an ordinary Diet. The house -of nobility in the Diet before the last consisted, as before stated, of 492 mem- bers, of whom 17 were independent of the executive in their circumstances and position in society : the house of clergy consisted of 57 members, all in office, and depending for advancement or family advantage upon court fitvour the house of burge;ses consisted of 47 members, of whom 15 were burgo- masters appointed by the crown, 10 were counsellors, and 4 counsellors of commerce, all more or less connected officially with the crown : the house of peasants consisted of 122 members. Of the whole Diet, consisting of 718 members in all, 164 members only, viz. 17 of the house of nobles, 25 of the house of burgesses, and the 122 of the house of peasants, were not visibly connected by office with the executive or court. The house of nobility in this constitution represents about 13,500 individuals, and property valued at 75 millions of dollars : the house of clergy, 14,000 individuals, and I million of dollars : the house of burgesses, about 66,000 individuals, and about 35 mil- lions of dollars ; and the house of peasantry, 2 millions of individuals, and

175 millions of dollars. The three chambers of nobility, clergy, and burgesses, representing together only 90,000 individuals, have each as much weight in the legislature as the remaining house, representing; 2 millions of people, with 175 millions of dollars: and the 72,417 people of coodition. with property valued and taxed for 59 millions of dollars, are not represented at all. We sometimes hear the Swedish constitution talked of by Swedish travellers (noblemen) as something excellent: it is 90 for them.

Though we point out the causes of the inferiority of the present

volume to the Norway of Mr. LAING, it must not be inferred that the work is either made-up or trashy. The author is a man of ac- quirement, experience, knowledge of afthirs, and great ability. His statistical facts are selected with judgment, and commented upon with sagacity ; his disquisitions are those of a nmn of sense ; and, besides such things as these, the work contains many striking descriptions and comparisons, the result of immediate observation, or deductions from inquiries and experience.

Taking our extracts indifferently from any subject, we will begin with a comparison between a Swedish coasting-town and places of the same class in Scotland. The reader who would find Unica on the map, may look about two-thirds up the Gulf of Bothnia, in latitude 64'.

"Last night, before the 'gale came on, we sat on -deck ; and a lady who in any country would have been called beautiful, played the guitar and sang Italian airs as we glided over the smooth sea in the evening sunbeams. Can this be the road to Lapland, I thought, or am I coasting on the Adriatic ? It is rather ridiculous„ when we consider on the spot the false impressions which - travellers give us of distant phices—innocently, no doubt, because these are their real-impressions received in an excited state of -mind. , This limes, and all the towns I have passed, are, in sober reality, very like our own coast -side towns of the same population. The people earn their living in the Same Way, by the fisheries, the trade of ghip4iailding, And the supplying the neighbouring

TIIE DALECARLIANS.

The Dalecarle still thinks himself, as our Highlanders do, of a superior caste, and adheres proudly to his white wadmal coat, his breeches with huge buttons and knee-buckles, his hose gartered below the knee; and his wife to her red stockings, high-heeled shoes, and yellow cap. Every parish or dale, however, has some peculiar colour or stripe, but all the women use this shoe with a high heel or prop under the hinder part of the foot. It has given them a peculiar kind of gait, front the back sinews not being so much exerted, and the fore sinews more. When they are walking barefoot at this season, they bring the tbre part of the foot first to the ground, as soldiers of old used to be drilled in vain to do. I can distinguish a Dal woman welkin.- barefoot by her gait. It is an evil attending this adherence to their ancient dress, dwellings, and modes of living, that they have acquired imo tastes or habits counteracting the ten- dency to over-multiplication ; no expensive wants rendering marriage incom- patible with habitual gratifications, or with social standing. They have, from want of these cheeks, married and multiplied, and divided theirlittle proper- ties to an extent similar; to what, from the same cause, takes place among tenantry of Ireland.

DEMOCRACY ANI) BIONARCIIY.

Modern history presents few events so instructive to posterity as the kind of experimental trial, as it may be called, between the purely monarchicalprinci- pie and the purely liberal or democratical, which has been going on during the last twenty years between Denmark and Norway. The government of Den- mark is purely Alunarchicid, that of Norway more Democratical than any other constitution in Europe ; and twentv-one years ago both countries started with an equalized public debt, anti equally exhausted by the calamities dour. On the separatioli DIN orway front the Danish crown, the latter justly claimed that a fair proportion of the common public debt of the two countries should be taken over by Norway. This claim was sanctioned by the Allied Powers • and its it was virtually a recognition by them of Norway as a self-existing in'ilependeut state, and not a mere province or part of Sweden, and was in itself just, it was acceded to by the Storthing. The Danish government hatl no reason to make their claim for less than Norway's fair proportion of the common debt, adjusted according to the respective means and resources of the two countries. Tint3 both nations started, twenty-one years ago, with equal debt in proportion to their property and population ; but Norway, with the disadvantage of having to form every thing required in au independent state, all the head departments of its former government having been concentrated in Copenhagen ; Denmark with the advantages not only of superior climate, soil, and capital, but of hav- ing all civil and military establishments already formed. What have been the results of legislation on these two distinct principles of government, after a course of twenty-one years of uninterrupted peace ? Norway. has paid elf all her debt except 3,127,771 Norwegian dollars—due principally: within the country, and not redeemable; has formed military, naval, and civil establish- country with warea. The people are clad in the Same -way—the peasantry very like our own Scotch country people. In some respects the 'difference as pears to me in favour of the little towns here. They are more ipen and air'e: the streets better paved and cleaner, the houses more roomy and Mee, tf,o meanest with window-curtains or blinds and flower-pots in the windows, sod much better washed and scoured. The inns are better. I am here in a more comfortable, cleaner house than any of our smaller towns in the north of Soo. land, excepting perhaps Inverness, can boast of. In this little town of 1,100 inhabitants, at the distance of 470 miles from the capital, there are sttairtoe booksellers' shops ; in which I found a good. stock of 'modern hookt, among others the-Life of Columbus, by Washington Irving, in English. Ai the comforts, conveniences, and, to judge by the appearance of the' ladies and gentlemen, the elegancies of a refined life are to be found in as great abundance as in our small towns, and perhaps even extending lower in society, from the daily mode of living being less costly. In the appearance or habits of the peo. ple, there is nothing to give you the idea of ignorance, rawness, or a low

of manners. Therei nothing of Lapland here, except perhaps in the food. I had seen graf hlx, that is, rough salmon, or, in other words, raw salmon, on the carte of'tt restaurateur in Stockholm : and seeing other people eat it with relish,

I called for a portion too, but could not bring myself to swallow a slice of raw fish. * * * * With this raw breakfast we had better ale and wine (both French wine and 'Madeira) thou we would get in the inn of a country town jim Scotland. Dialler was well dressed ; and except that custard over the spinaze is not our way of using these eatables, presented nothing different from Sioet. holm. The linen, beds, aml every article in the household being dean, nice, and in order, the servant-girls very neatly dressed, and the kitchen as nice and bright as in any English house, the difference between this town and the chid towns, for instance, of I:toss-shire or Caithness, in the comforts or refinements of civilized life, do not strike me as exhibiting any balance against the capital of Umea Lapmark."

siAtscrAcTunn or TAR.

Tar is a third article of manuflicture. The machinery of the world could scarcely go on without tar ; yet we seldom think of inquiring how it is made. Fir-trees, (pious silvestris,) which are stunted, or from situation not adapted for the saw-mill, are peeled of the bark a fathom or two up the stem. This is done by degrees, so that the tree should not decav and dry up at once, but for fire or six years should remain in a vegetating state, alive but not growing. The sap thus checked makes the wood richer in tar ; and at the end of six years the tree is cut down, and is found converted almost entirely into the substance from which tar is distilled. The roots, rotten stubs, and scorched tenni:sof the trees felled for clearing land, are all used for making tar. In the burning or distilling, the state of the weather, rain or wind, in packing the kiln, will make a difference of 15 or 20 per cent. in the produce of tar. The labour of transporting the tar out of the forest to the river-side is very great. The barrels containing tar are always very thick and strong, because on the way to market they have often to be committed to the stream tocarry them down the rapids and water-falls.

here is part of a fairy picture of Angcrinanland, between 1 and 2 degrees South of Umea.

The people of these two countries, North and. South Angermanlaml, seem to unite on a small scale all the advantages of a manufacturing and agricul- tural population more fully than any district I have ever seen. The land is all in small estates in the possession of the peasants. The men do the farm business, the women are driving a not less profitable branch of industry. There is full employment at the leom, or in spinning, for old and young of tile female sex. Servants are no burden. About the houses and inside there is all the cleanliness and neatness of a thriving manufacturing, and the abundance of an agricultural population. The table-linen laid down even for your glass of milk-aud piece of bread, is always clean ; the beds and sheets always nice and white. Everybody is well clad ;.for their manufacturing is like thew farm- ing—for their own use in the first place, and the surplus only as a secondary object, for sale ; and from the number of little nick-nacks in their households, such as good tables and chairs, window-curtains and blinds—which no hut is without—clocks, tine bedding, papered rooms, and a few books, it is evident that they lay out their winnings on their comthrts, and that they are not on a low scale of social wellbeing, but on as high a scale as such of our artisans as have a clear view of constant living by their trades. This is Sweden.

Here is a sketch of a race well known in the history of Gus.

TAVUS VASA.

meats suitable to her condition ; has regularly diminished the taxes in propor- tion to the reduction of her debt ; and in the one-and-twentieth year, has been able to take off the direct taxes on property altogether—finding the indirect toes sufficient to cover the expenditure, with a sufficiently large surplus. Denmark, during the same period, has augmented her public debt to about, it is conjectured—tor on the monarchical principle these are not matters kid dearly before the public—the sum of one hundred and twenty-seven millions of pnlslt rix-dollars ; has every year had an under balance, or excess of expendi- ture above income, of one:and-a-half millions, and at the very time the Nor- wegian Storthing was paying off the last of its foreign loans and debts that were redeemable, and relieving the people from all direct taxes on their land; Baron Rothschild arrived in Copenhagen.

Befbre leaving Mr. LAING, we may observe, that hypercritics might cavil with him fbr what would appear to be contradictions, and is perhaps inconsistency ; his particular fltcts not always squaring with his general conclusions. For this, however, we can readily account : his statistics, or his second-hand information. whether from books or men, led him to conclusions which his sketches of what he saw do not always support,—a dilemma inse- parable from his present mode of composition. A man who lei- surely considers his authorities, thoroughly digests his matter, and, after making it his own, pours it out in state of complete fusion, mai be erroneous, but he will always produce that consistent whole which must be wanting to a rapidly-concocted book.