ight until Monday morning, when the young men find time to
visit them, they lead the most solitary lives, and are busy all day in
milking cows and goats and making butter and cheese.

[7] In 1833 the total production of spirits in the rural districts
amounted to about 3-1/2 gallons per head of the population. The
demoralization that resulted from its increase necessitated the
enactment of restrictive measures, and at last, in 1848, the small
stills were purchased by the State, and private distillation was
prohibited. As in Great Britain, the vice of drunkeness is now
decreasing in Norway, owing partly to the reduced means of the
population, but chiefly to the influence of education and of temperance
societies.

[8] The average proportion of 1851-52 was 9.32 per cent. There is a
difference of only 1 per cent, between the rates of illegitimacy in
rural and urban districts, to the disadvantage of the latter.

[9] 'The French Constitution of 1791 is one of the principal sources of
the Fundamental Law of Norway. The suspensive veto has been derived from
it.'--O. I. Broch.

[10] At the end of 1882, the total population was estimated at
1,922,500, or a decrease 3900 as compared with 1881, when the increase
was only 1000 from the year preceding.

[11] In 1880, the average rate of wages for labourers engaged by the
year in agricultural districts was 8l. 10s. per annum, and that of daily
labour, without food, 1s. 9d. per diem; the corresponding rates in towns
having been 11l. 6s. 8d. and 2s.

[12] Our readers must, however, bear in mind that we are dealing only
with the rural economy of Norway, and that the facts we shall submit on
that subject affect but slightly the general financial condition of a
country which continues to derive its earnings mainly from the supply of
timber, fish, wood-pulp, ice, &c., to foreign countries, and from its
extensive carrying trade in sailing vessels and steamers. The prosperity
of the towns is influenced chiefly by the state of trade in the rest of
Europe, while being (to the extent of 122 out of 128) situated on the
seaboard, their successful development reacts but little on the
prosperity of the inland agricultural districts.

[13] In the 'Tables of Landed Property,' published in 1880, the holdings
(in 1865) are classified as follows:--

Properties under 5 acres 34,224 or 15.5 per cent.
" between 5 and 12-1/2 acres 42,984 " 32.1 "
" " 12