Norwegian Life Part 6

Trondhjem itself is an odd place for festivities. The people say that it is fear of fire which makes them separate their insignificant wooden houses by such disproportionately broad streets. Certainly it gives to the town a low look anything but imposing.

Whatever may be the esthetic shortcomings of King Haakon's coronation city, it was amply atoned for by the enthusiasm and whole-hearted devotion of his new people. The king and queen are in very truth "the father and mother of the land." Even toward the rulers they shared with Sweden their cherished warm affection until their grievances waxed too sore. When Sophie of Na.s.sau was on her way to Trondhjem to be crowned, in 1873, she drove herself in a carriole from the Romsdal, stopping perforce at humble posting-stations by the way. And everywhere the peasants came with flowers, greeting their queen by the affectionate and familiar "Du." More than once when the press was thick about her, and those on the outskirts could not see, the queen was urged to mount upon the housetop that the eyes of all might be gladdened by the sight of the dear land-mother. There was a significant demonstration of this sort of heart-loyalty when Haakon VII and Queen Maud entered Christiania. The crowds which waited in the steadily falling snow, and shouted themselves hoa.r.s.e, might be accounted for by curiosity and mob enthusiasm.

Triumphal arches, flags, and even the rain of flowers which descended on the royal pair, might be cla.s.sed as perfunctory, an essential part of the occasion. But at night the spirit of the people showed beyond mistake. Not only were the streets arched and bordered with festoons of colored incandescent lights, not only were the battles.h.i.+ps in the harbor strung with fiery beads to the topmost spar, but every window in every house in the city bore its light. Fine houses had candelabra behind the gla.s.s, and the poorest mere tapers, but everywhere the same fire of welcome burned.

Haakon VII has the privilege of ruling over the most united people on the face of the earth. Before the plebiscite, Sweden declared that the desire for separation was confined to a party who were poisoning the minds of the common people. When the plebiscite had shown that only 164 men out of 368,000 could be found to uphold the union, Sweden protested that the peasants had been intimidated and dared not vote as they thought!

Now, it was just at this stirring time that I was driving through Norway, or cruising in her fjords, and talking with graduates of her university, with sea-captains, hotel proprietors, traveling men, porters, drivers, serving-maids--all, in short, who spoke English enough to make themselves clear. It was as if all Norway spoke with one voice. From Hamerfest to Stavanger there was the same complaint of the same wrongs, the same quiet insistence upon the same remedy. Nor was it only the subjects of King Oscar who spoke; Norwegians settled in France, in England, or in America either hurried home to vote or sent their vigorous endors.e.m.e.nt of the revolutionary proceedings. A window in Christiania was completely filled by the mingled flags of Norway and the United States, crossed by a banner bearing the words, "For Disunion." It was the voice of Norway and America. It was a modest desire they expressed. In the words of Olaf Sprachehaug, our humble-minded _skydsgut_, the whole country was saying, "And now I t'ink we get a king of our own." They have their own king now, and all the world wishes them joy in him.[j]

CHAPTER XI

THE ROYAL FAMILY OF SWEDEN

The present reigning family of Sweden is too young to be very numerous, and in this brief survey it is well to begin with a bit of information about that grand democratic monarch, Oscar II, pa.s.sed away less than two years ago. How the Bernadotte dynasty was formed has already been shown in a previous chapter, and something of the kings, who succeeded the former Field Marshal of France has also been related, so that we have in these few pages simply to deal with Oscar II, the late king, and his four sons and their families.

Oscar's grandfather, the originator of the Bernadotte dynasty, was still on the throne when he was born, in 1829, as the third son of Crown Prince Oscar and the beautiful Josephine of Leuchtenberg. He seemed far removed from the throne then, and thus he found freedom to develop himself more in keeping with his individual tastes and inclinations. Another factor to be borne in mind is the character of his governor and princ.i.p.al instructor, the historian, F.F. Carlson, who gave to his pupil a fondness for scientific exactness as well as an insight into the true causes of civilizatory development found none too frequently in professional thinkers, and hardly ever in princes.

The things that drew him most strongly in those days were the sea, and music.

One of the foremost of Swedish composers, A.F. Lindblad, taught him the latter, while his fondness for the former was richly satisfied during the years when he worked his way through the ranks of the Swedish navy. And his position on board the various man-of-war's-men in which he traveled on many seas was never merely ornamental or even exceptional. He took not only the t.i.tle but also the work of the offices he held, from mids.h.i.+pman to admiral.

It was characteristic of him, too, that when he married, he did so out of love. On a tour through several countries; in 1856, he was fortunate enough to meet Princess Sophia of Na.s.sau. The courts.h.i.+p was brief and ardent. Within a few months occurred the engagement, and the wedding followed in less than a year. To the last that royal couple remained strongly devoted to each other in spite of widely differing tastes and temperaments. She has all her life been intensely religious, with a strong leaning toward pietism, and illness has still further developed this inborn tendency. He, on the other hand, was always gay, light-hearted, fond of merriment, and given to many pleasures and pursuits which his spouse could only look upon as far too worldly.

Duke Oscar Frederick, as he was known in those early days, found himself heir to the throne after death had unexpectedly removed the two claimants with rights prior to his own. And on the succession of his eldest brother, he became the Crown Prince. It was a delicate position which imposed on him a reserve foreign to his nature. As it contrasted sharply with the unceremonious jollity of his brother, King Charles, he came by degrees to be regarded by those ignorant of his true character with a distrust bordering on dislike. Thus, when the succession fell to him in 1872, he found himself little understood and less loved. It took him years to overcome the prejudice. Perhaps it was his sanction of the impeachment proceedings by the Norwegian Radicals against the retiring Conservative ministry which, in the early '80's, first served to turn the trend of public opinion in his favor, both in Sweden and Norway. That act was one of the many by which he showed his ability to submit his own inclinations to the demands of the people without becoming a mere tool in the hands of any one political party. About the same time he succeeded in bringing about a deeply needed and by himself long-cherished reform of the popular educational system in Sweden. Previously,--it was, in fact, his first important step after his ascension to the throne,--he had on his own initiative proclaimed full freedom of wors.h.i.+p for persons not belonging to the established church.

A Scandinavianism of the purely sentimental kind,--the kind that talked without ever dreaming of putting the talk into deeds,--had prevailed until then on the peninsula. Intermixed with it was an equally sentimental sympathy with France. Though himself the grandson of a Frenchman and still keenly devoted to French literature and art, King Oscar had the foresightedness to recognize that the interests of the country were more closely bound up with those of Germany. And one of the most striking features of his reign was the growing cultural intercourse between the nations in the north and their neighbor south of the Baltic. And while the king discouraged the speech-making, empty Scandinavianism against which Ibsen was fond of launching his most vitriolic invectives, he fostered instead a fellow-feeling between Sweden, Norway and Denmark that found its expression in practical co-operation, in the equalization of commercial and industrial regulations, in the breaking down of as many as possible of the unnecessary barriers between them. As the years pa.s.sed on and the trend of his labors became understood and appreciated, he found a part of his reward in a steadily increasing respect for him throughout the civilized world, a respect that repeatedly found expression in requests that he act as arbiter of international differences. He had always been fond of traveling, and this fondness he continued to indulge up to the last. Unlike those of some other monarchs having a similar taste, his comings and goings on the Continent were always the objects of pleasant and welcoming comment. If gossip had to name King Christian of Denmark "the father-in-law of all Europe," King Oscar was surely "the friend of all the world." Apace with his own fame grew the prosperity of his people. On either side of the Kjolen his reign marked an era of unprecedented economical, social, and spiritual progress which not even the internal dissensions of the sister nation could interrupt.

King Oscar's motto was _Brodrafolkens Val_ "The Brother-Peoples Weal!"

The Scandinavian peninsula is still populated by brother-peoples, as was indicated at the time of the death of the old king. It was the week for the distribution in Norway of the n.o.bel prizes, always attended in Christiania with great rejoicing and merry-making. On this occasion all demonstration was prohibited, and the Norwegian capital was almost as much in mourning as was Stockholm. Though entirely devoted to the new order of things, the Norwegians did not forget, nor will they forget, the character of the king who ruled them for a generation. More democratic than the Swedes, they were peculiarly attached personally, if not politically, to one whom they felt to be really of like democratic instincts with themselves, even if he did show himself every inch a king.

Not only as a ruler, but as a father, King Oscar was both wise and fortunate. Four sons came to him through his marriage, and these have proved men of his own type. The Crown Prince Gustave was born just one year after the marriage of his parents, on June 16th, at the Castle of Drottingholm, in the year 1858; Prince Oscar, known as Prince Bernadotte, was born on Nov. 15, 1859, at Stockholm; Prince Carl on Feb. 27, 1861, also at Stockholm; while the youngest, Prince Eugene, like his eldest brother, first saw the light at the Castle of Drottingholm, on Aug. 1, 1865. As has been previously stated, the Crown Prince (now king) was married to the Princess Victoria of Bade, granddaughter of Emperor William I of Germany, and great-granddaughter of the exiled Gustavus IV of Sweden. The third son, Prince Carl, is wedded to his cousin, the Princess Ingeborg of Denmark, which was a source of great satisfaction to King Oscar and Queen Sophie. The youngest son, Prince Eugene, is devoted to art, and spends much time out of the country. Never did King Oscar do more to win the approval of his subjects, and thinking men and women everywhere, than when he permitted the marriage of his second son, Prince Oscar, to a young Swedish n.o.blewoman, Froken Ebba Munck, of Fulkila, who was also Queen Sophie's maid-of-honor. While the prince had to renounce his right of succession and his position as a royal prince of Sweden, his relations to his father and the other members of the royal family remained the same.

Of this incident in the history of the royal family of Sweden, the following story is told:

The Queen interceded long and persistently with her husband for permission for her second son to be married to the woman he loved.

Although the Munck family had played a very important part in the history of the nation, the king was opposed to the _mesalliance_. "It is Oscar's duty to be true to himself and to his love," she used to say. But the king, who was not wont to refuse any of the wishes of his consort, steadily refused to sanction the union. There were many things against such a marriage, for Prince Oscar was the second son of the king, and the very fact that the reigning House of Norway and Sweden was one of the most youthful of the royal houses of Europe made it all the more necessary that its scions should intermarry with the members of the ancient reigning houses.

About this time the queen was seized with one of her serious attacks of illness, and her state was such that at one time her life was despaired of. Her physicians declared that her only hope of recovery lay in an instant operation, which was both dangerous and extremely painful.

The queen called the king to her bedside, and said, "If I undergo this operation and recover, will you allow Oscar and Ebba to have their way?" The king was unable to resist such an appeal, made at such a time, and gave his promise. A short time afterwards the operation was successfully performed, and when the queen was convalescent, the king redeemed his promise and gave his consent to the marriage of his second son. It was on Christmas Eve, and the king had come to his wife's apartments to see her. He found Ebba Munck and his son Oscar with her. The maid-of-honor was, at the time of his entrance, singing one of his poems to Her Majesty, which, oddly enough, was on the subject of the right to love. After waiting until the song was ended, the king went up to his son, and, leading him to the girl, laid his hand in hers, in this manner signifying that he had withdrawn his opposition to their plans.

The marriage has proved a most happy one. Prince Oscar has found perfect content, and has been able to follow his career as a philanthropist. The wedding took place at Bournemouth, in the presence of the queen of Sweden, on March 15, 1888, and for some time after it the prince and his wife were known as Prince and Princess Bernadotte; but later the uncle of Prince Oscar, the Grand Duke of Luxemburg, gave him the t.i.tle of the Count of Wisborg for himself and his descendants.

When their children were born, Prince Oscar and his wife proclaimed them as the children of Oscar and Ebba Bernadotte, and, during their entire married life, they have lived as quietly and simply as possible, and have found their greatest interest in working for the poor and suffering. They have a son and a daughter, the former, Count Carl Oscar, having been born on May 27, 1890, and the latter, the Countess Marie, on February 28, 1889; and three other children.

And so, as the years went by, a third generation grew up in the palace at Stockholm,--a brood of long-limbed and broad-shouldered sons with wholesome tastes and bright minds and kindly temperaments. And at last, when the king was seventy-eight years old, a great-grandchild was laid in his arms,--the first son of Prince Gustavus Adolphus (now the Crown Prince) and the Princess Margaret of Connaught.

Up to the last King Oscar remained active and interested in all public affairs. Though he had experienced several brief but rather severe illnesses of late years, the end came without warning, after a few days of indisposition, on Dec. 8, 1907. A kindly "thanks" for a small favor rendered him by a member of his family was the last word heard from his lips. Previously he had expressed his wish to the members of his cabinet that no interruption in public or private business be made on account of his death.

King Gustavus V, who took the oath of office within a few hours of his father's death, has suffered something resembling his father's fate as Crown Prince. Overshadowed by the more brilliant gifts and more attractive personality of the parent, he was for years spoken of in rather a disparaging manner in Sweden, while in Norway he harvested outright hatred in return for his determined upholding of the union.

On frequent occasions during the last decade of his father's reign, he acted as vice-regent while his father was sick or traveling, and in this way he found chances to display qualities that gradually changed the popular regard of him from one of suspicion to one of hearty respect. His near-sightedness, his serious-mindedness, have militated against him, but it seems probable that he will prove the very _best_ ruler Sweden could desire at the present juncture. He is slow to make up his mind, and will not do so until he has searched every phase and detail of the problem before him, but once he has come to a conclusion, he pursues his path without looking to the right or left.

Gustavus is fifty years old, tall, rather dark, quite una.s.suming, and is essentially democratic, while seeming the opposite, whereas Oscar was aristocratic, although he made much of the people. Like all other Swedish kings, Gustavus adopted a motto when he ascended the throne; it is "With the People for the Fatherland"--not inappropriate in view of his inheritance of a problem clamoring for solution, the extension of the suffrage and a more direct representation of the people in both the upper and lower houses of the Riksdag. The new king, who possesses an uncommon amount of energy, may probably be depended upon to accomplish this reform.

There is neither pride of an objectionable type, nor any tendency to tyranny, nor one strain of arrogance in the new king. He may not be able to draw upon such ripe culture or upon such fine talents as the monarch who preceded him, yet the Swedes have no fear that his love of truth and justice will not outweigh this deficiency and probably make him a more practical ruler. As for the French descent of the Swedish royal house, neither the present nor the late king have ever been ashamed of their ancestry, or forgotten that the first Bernadotte on their throne was one of Napoleon's greatest marshals.

Never will Gustavus V be able to give to words or actions that brilliantly original and kingly tone for which his late father was so admired everywhere. That, to the mind of all beholders, is to be the drawback of his reign, for he is the merest mortal; where his father was the luminous angel. Where Oscar would have been finely eloquent, Gustavus shows himself merely sensible. Oscar's temper was heated, his emotions were forever coming to the surface. Gustave is, if more poised, less interesting. He has always been addicted to manly sports and exercises. He has often been observed to "put up" an excellent game of tennis at the club in Stockholm. But he is without the alert and springy step of the old Oscar, whose muscles remained taut and elastic almost to his dying day. Gustave lacks the literary apt.i.tudes of his late father, likewise, who left a well-filled book of verse which admirers all over Europe did into French, German, Italian, Danish, and even Hungarian. Gustave has not inherited his mother's musical genius, either. She was at one time a devotee of Wagner, a disciple of Kant, and always a pious evangelical of the German cast. From both his parents Gustave received every encouragement to proficiency in music. Music, to the late Oscar, was, both in theory and practice, an essential element in the intellectual life. Gustave is less the artist than the practical king.

He encourages international congresses of every kind to come to Sweden; he helps the universities and the cause of education throughout his kingdom; he feels his father's interest in Hedin's travels through central Asia, but he can give no creative impulse after his father's grand fas.h.i.+on. Oscar was the man of ideas, the vitalizer of projects literary, musical, dramatic and scientific. He made Stockholm the capital of the whole intellectual world. Gustave is very courteous, affable in a dignified way, impressive as he opens the Riksdag in royal ermine. He has commenced his reign in simplicity, rising at eight, breakfasting on coffee and rolls, reading the morning papers until ten, and reviewing the military with a conscientious a.s.siduity. His note is repose both in manner and in speech, in striking contrast with the late Oscar, who was majestic in the very way he had of eating cold meat at supper, and whose height of six feet three towered, almost without the drooping heaviness of age, till his seventy-ninth year. Notwithstanding the adverse comparison with his parent, one has but to see Gustave's face, with its determination and refinement, to feel a certain a.s.surance as to Sweden's future.

It is a curious fact that there has been such a dearth of girls in the Swedish royal family, the only princess of the house being the Crown Princess of Denmark, a daughter of the late King Charles XV. The present queen has only sons: Crown Prince Gustavus Adolphus, wedded to Margaret of Connaught; Prince Wilhelm, who was recently married to the Russian Princess Marie Palvona, and Prince Erik, now about twenty years of age. The present Crown Prince and Princess are seemingly perpetuating the tradition, as their first child is a l.u.s.ty little son.

Queen Victoria is said to be endowed with an instinct for business of every kind far finer and more efficient than that of her husband, and it is to be regretted that her health is so frail that she is obliged to spend much time outside her husband's realm, and the duties of her royal dignity devolve upon her daughter-in-law, the Crown Princess.

It is very satisfying to the Swedish people that by a strange play of circ.u.mstances, the claims of the extinct House of Vasa,--the last direct descendant of which pa.s.sed away a few days after King Oscar, in the person of Carola, Dowager-Queen of Saxony, and daughter of the deposed King Gustavus Adolphus IV of Sweden,--are again restored, and that the reigning House of Bernadotte and the ancient House of Vasa have become joined through the present Crown Prince. It is something to consider, too, that Adolphus V is the first of the Bernadotte dynasty in whose veins, through his mother, Sophie of Na.s.sau, there flows royal blood.[k]

CHAPTER XII

CHARITABLE AND BENEVOLENT INSt.i.tUTIONS

This is the age of munificent benefactions in aid of science and learning. The Rhodes scholars.h.i.+ps, Mr. Carnegie's free libraries and educational endowments, the Duc d'Aumale's gift to the French Academy of his fine _chatteau_ at Chantilly, with its magnificent historical and art collections; many inst.i.tutions founded in the United States and elsewhere by multi-millionaires for the advancement of knowledge, are a sign of the times. They foreshadow the abolishment of pauperism and its attendant charities to give place to beneficent inst.i.tutions, and Norway and Sweden are abreast with other countries in this movement. Apart from charitable inst.i.tutions and endowments for the maintenance of hospitals and asylums, of universities, scholars.h.i.+ps and fellows.h.i.+ps, which the generosity of former generations has secured, the present generation has seen n.o.ble donations made by private men for more special objects, having the general advancement of knowledge in view, such as the encouragement of scientific research and the support of voyages of geographical exploration. Nordenskiold's Arctic voyages, his and Palander's navigation through the polar northeast pa.s.sage in the _Vega_, Nathort's exploration of King Carl's Land, the Swedish expedition to the Antarctic regions under Otto Nordenskiold, which has lately returned after two years' adventurous exploration in Graham Land and the discovery of King Oscar Land, Sven Hedin's travels in Central Asia, which have had such important results and made his works so widely read--all these were undertaken as the result of such aid. The latest case in point, Alfred n.o.bel's foundation of annual prizes for the reward of scientific discovery, of literary merit, and humanitarian endeavor, deserves special notice.

The annual distribution of these prizes, each of which represents a small fortune ($41,500), has of late years fixed the attention of the learned world on the Swedish literary and scientific bodies, and the Norwegian Parliamentary Committee, who were entrusted by him with the difficult and invidious task of awarding them.

Alfred n.o.bel, the dynamite king, as he was styled, belonged to a family of inventors and industrial magnates. His father, Emmanuel n.o.bel, was the inventor of nitroglycerine, and of fixed submarine torpedoes or mines. His two brothers, Robert and Louis n.o.bel, founded the naptha and petroleum works at Bacou, one of the largest industrial enterprises of Russia. Alfred himself invented dynamite and dynamite gum, and a smokeless powder, ballist.i.te, which he patented in 1867, 1876, and 1889. It is mainly due to the works of the n.o.bel family that Sweden has attained the reputation of Master Producer of Explosives.

Chemical research has always been a specialty among Swedish men of science, and a large number of the known chemical elements were discovered and made known by Swedish scientists.

In 1876, Alfred n.o.bel had perfected his invention of dynamite gum. He went to Paris with his patented invention, and there formed a company with a capital of ten million francs for the manufacture of dynamite.

It proved to be an article of the greatest industrial importance, and one destined to revolutionize mining and engineering. Erelong he had established extensive works in France, Scotland, Germany, Belgium, Austria, and the United States. He produced over $25,000,000 worth a year. He became, in fact, the world's purveyor of an article which was now exclusively used in mining and engineering works. Thanks to it, engineers were able to pierce tunnels through the Alps, miners to sink their shafts into the bowels of the earth, and harbor constructors to remove sunken rocks out of the way of s.h.i.+pping. But thanks to it, too, the Communards were enabled to blow up the finest monuments of Paris in a few hours. It was at once a powerful instrument of industrial development, and of progress in the conquest of man over inert matter, and a terrible engine of devastation in warfare, and of ma.s.sacre and vandalism where homicidal and destructive pa.s.sions were aroused in mankind.

It was perhaps this thought, that in benefiting industry he had also made war more destructive, which led Alfred n.o.bel, who was a most pacific and humane man, endowed with the kindliness and sympathy of a great mind, to make the provisions he did in his will. He devoted all his fortune to the encouragement of scientific discovery and the reward of endeavors to diminish standing armies and the chances of war, to promote fraternity among nations, and the settlement of international disputes by peace congresses. His will, in its very conciseness and unsophisticated simplicity, is characteristic of the man. It is dated Nov. 27, 1895, and he died a year afterwards, on Dec.

10, 1896, leaving a fortune of $10,000,000. After inst.i.tuting several small legacies, the will proceeds:

"With the residue of my convertible estate I hereby direct my executors to proceed as follows: They shall convert my said residue of property into money, which they shall then invest in safe securities; the capital thus secured shall const.i.tute a fund, the interest accruing from which shall be annually awarded in prizes to those persons who shall have contributed most materially to benefit mankind during the year immediately preceding. The said interest shall be divided into five equal amounts, to be apportioned as follows: one share to the person who shall have made the most important discovery or invention in the domain of physics; one share to the person who shall have made the most important chemical discovery or improvement; one share to the person who shall have made the most important discovery in the domain of physiology or medicine; one share to the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most distinguished work of an idealistic tendency; and, finally, one share to the person who shall have most or best promoted the fraternity of nations and the abolition or diminution of standing armies and the formation or increase of peace congresses. The prizes for physics and chemistry shall be awarded by the Swedish Academy of Science in Stockholm, the one for physiology or medicine by the Caroline Medical Inst.i.tute in Stockholm; the prize for literature by the Swedish Academy in Stockholm, and that for peace by a committee of five persons to be elected by the Norwegian Storthing. I declare it to be my express desire that, in awarding these prizes, no consideration whatever be paid to the nationality of the candidates, that is to say, the most deserving be awarded the prize, whether of Scandinavian origin or not."

It was n.o.bel's object to reward and help the pure man of science, too much absorbed in his researches to think of drawing any industrial or pecuniary advantages from his scientific discoveries. "I would not leave anything to a man of action or industrial enterprise," he said to a friend with whom he was discussing the project of his will; "the sudden acquisition of a fortune would probably only damp the energy and weaken the spirit of enterprise of such a man. I want to aid the dreamer, the scientific enthusiast, who forgets everything in the pursuit of his ideas."

It seems like dropping from the sublime to the ridiculous to follow so ideal a benefaction with a report of so mundane a thing as a soup kitchen, but soup is as necessary to humanity at the present period of life as some of the exalted things of the intellect, and, as pauperism in Norway and Sweden is so almost un.o.bservable, it is difficult to search out with the keenest vision any charity that is doing more than are the "steam kitchens" of Norway and Sweden. And the keenest vision would hardly observe that these "steam kitchens" are charitable inst.i.tutions. They are called "steam kitchens" because they are the first inst.i.tutions in the peninsula where steam was used for the cooking of food. The one at Stockholm, inst.i.tuted by Prince Carl, is very similar in detail and operation to the one in Christiania, but the latter was established first and is more perfect in its arrangement and methods, so we will take it for ill.u.s.tration.

This kitchen at Christiania was established in 1858 by benevolent people to provide wholesome food for the poor at low prices. The charter granted to the company limited its profits to six per cent of the capital invested, with a provision that the balance, if any, should be paid into the poor fund of the city. There was a hard struggle at first to make both ends meet, and an annual deficit for many years, which was made up by the stockholders, but at last the "kitchen" became so popular that it began to pay dividends, and the stock has since been watered four times, until it now pays what is equivalent to twenty-four per cent annually upon the original investment, with a surplus larger than the capital on which it was started. It is one of the most profitable enterprises in Europe for the amount of money involved, but that fact does not diminish the benefits conferred upon the public, and the generosity of the company to the poor, particularly in times of labor troubles and financial depression, can not be questioned. Hundreds of bachelors and single women take their meals there regularly, and hundreds of families obtain their entire supply of food, wholesome and well cooked, at nominal cost.

There is a long official t.i.tle to the company, but n.o.body ever mentions it. It occupies a two-story building covering nearly half an ordinary block. The location is convenient to the business portion of the city, the docks and the market-place. There are two large halls, one above the other, containing five long tables, seating thirty persons each, thus accommodating three hundred customers at a sitting.

In the upstairs room it costs eleven cents in our money for a good dinner; in the lower room it costs nine cents. There are no tablecloths and no napkins, but the tops of the tables have been scoured until they s.h.i.+ne and everything is spotless. The whole inst.i.tution is a model of neatness. It seems remarkable how it can be kept so clean with so many unwashed customers and so much business.

The windows are large and let in plenty of light. The walls are covered with bright tints, and the waitresses wear white caps, ap.r.o.ns, and oversleeves. At each place is a knife, fork, spoon, drinking gla.s.s, cup and saucer, and a piece of bread about three inches square.