nd I
therefore took some pains to test my statements, both by means of the
Government statistics, and the views of my Swedish friends. I see no
reason to change my first impression: had I accepted all that was told
me by natives of the capital, I should have made the picture much
darker. The question is simply whether there is much difference between
the general adoption of illicit connections, or the existence of open
prostitution. The latter is almost unknown; the former is almost
universal, the supply being kept up by the miserable rates of wages paid
to female servants and seamstresses. The former get, on an average,
fifty _rigsdaler_ ($13) per year, out of which they must clothe
themselves: few of the latter can make one rigsdaler a day. These
connections are also encouraged by the fact, that marriage legitimates
all the children previously born. In fact, during the time of my visit
to Stockholm, a measure was proposed in the House of Clergy, securing to
bastards the same right of inheritance, as to legitimate children. Such
measures, however just they may be so far as the innocent offspring of a
guilty connection are concerned, have a direct tendency to impair the
sanctity of marriage, and consequently the general standard of morality.

This, the most vital of all the social problems, is strangely neglected.
The diseases and excesses which it engenders are far more devastating
than those which spring from any other vice, and yet no philanthropist
is bold enough to look the question in the face. The virtuous shrink
from it, the vicious don't care about it, the godly simply condemn, and
the ungodly indulge--and so the world rolls on, and hundreds of
thousands go down annually to utter ruin. It is useless to attempt the
extirpation of a vice which is inherent in the very nature of man, and
the alternative of either utterly ignoring, or of attempting to check
and regulate it, is a question of the most vital importance to the whole
human race.

[C] "Thus our great men wander from the light down into the shades."

CHAPTER XIX

JOURNEY TO GOTTENBURG AND COPENHAGEN.

I never knew a more sudden transition from winter to summer than we
experienced on the journey southward from Stockholm. When we left that
city on the evening of the 6th of May, there were no signs of spring
except a few early violets and anemones on the sheltered southern banks
in Haga Park; the grass was still brown and dead, the trees bare, an