Comparison of Town and Country. 串 235 centage of Sober, 65.1; uncertain, 25-8; drunkards, 9.1. Compared with the rural districts, we find thus that in the towns there is a smaller proportion of persons prone to yield to temptation, but at the same time a larger proportion of habitually sober and habitually intemperate people, consequently a more decided distinction between the weak and vicious characters and those capable of self-control. But the returns being so few, there was a likelihood that the aggregate numbers of one division or another might be unduly swollen by a very exceptional state of things in one or other of the towns. However, a division of these into two classes, the eastern and the western (and northern), shows the same relative proportions as compared with the rural districts, though the western towns prove to have a far greater proportion of habitual drunkards than the eastern, and a somewhat smaller per centage of habitually sober persons. A further peculiarity in regard to the towns becomes evident when we compare the numbers of the proprietary class and the working class. The aggregate returns for the towns give which numbers, when compared with the rural districts, give the following per centage: PROPRIETARY CLASS. Sober. Uncertain. Drunkards. Total. Country 64.5 31.7 3.8 100 WORKING CLASS. Sober. Uncertain. Drunkards. Total. 60.5 35.7 3.8 100 65.8 30.3 12.9 100 Here a twofold difference becomes apparent between town. and country. 1. We see that in both classes of the population there is a smaller proportion of uncertain' in the towns than in the country, while in the proprietary class there is a greater proportion of decidedly sober, and in the working class a greater proportion of decidedly intemperate persons; which corresponds with the difference between town and country in the comparison of the aggregate numbers. 2. In the towns the two extreme grades are more distinctly separated than in the country, for in the country the condition of the working class is only in so far worse than that of the proprietary class that there is a somewhat smaller per centage of sober persons; while in the towns, on the contrary, the lower condition of the labouring class is not only shown by a con siderably smaller proportion of temperate people, but by a very much larger proportion of habitual drunkards. In the towns, consequently, the condition of the proprietary class is by far better; that of the labouring class by far worse than in the country and the greater separation between the two extreme classes in the towns is confirmed. : A similar comparison with the towns divided into eastern and western shows the same result. Though the small number of the returns sent in for the towns is much to be deplored, Mr. Sundt thinks that, taken in the aggregate, they give a pretty correct view of the condition of the urban populations in general; and he next proceeds to compare this aggregate, not with the aggregate of the country districts, but with the three classes into which he has divided these according to situation. This comparison, instituted first without any distinction of the two classes, gives the following per centage: If we fix our attention on the class uncertain' in this table, we find a gradual decrease in number from the inner tracts to the mixed, from these to the outer, and from these again to the towns; consequently a wider separation between sobriety and drunkenness in the outer bygds than in the others, and greater similarity between them and the towns in this respect. But the comparison becomes still more instructive when a distinction is made between the classes. In respect of the great gulf that separates the virtue of sobriety from the vice of drunkenness, and also of the greater sobriety in the upper than in the lower classes, we see the rule confirmed, that the towns stand highest, then the outer bygds, and last the mixed and inner bygds, in which latter both classes are very nearly on the same level, a great proportion of the population belonging to the weak and vacillating category of the uncertain.' This difference between town and country cannot be considered to result from the different proportions of the two classes of the population, which, on other occasions, has proved to have such a decided bearing on the state of sobriety; for, as we have seen, the proportion of the classes in the different localities is Consequently, if the preponderance of the working classes among the populations were the determining cause in this case, the state of sobriety in the towns and in the inner bygds ought to have coincided, whereas the reality is quite the contrary, the greatest similarity being between the towns and the outer bygds; and we must, therefore, conclude that some other influence is at work, as has already been hinted. This influence Mr. Sundt believes to be the forcing, and at the same time sifting or separating, power exercised by life in large towns, which causes us there to meet with higher mental and moral culture and greater power of selfcontrol; but, on the other hand, also with a more reckless selfabandonment to vice, consequent on the greater development of the passions, and the more numerous inducements to wrong-doing. He also attributes the greater amount of temperance in the proprietary class and of intemperance in the working class in the towns as compared with the country, to the fact that in the towns it depends very much upon a man's character, upon his habits of industry and sobriety, his power of self-control and self-denial, whether he shall attain to, or remain in, that independent position which qualifies him to be numbered in the returns among the proprietary class. Whereas in the country this latter class consists mostly of peasants, who are either born to the possession of their freeholds, or succeed to them by right of inheritance, however idle and dissipated their habits may be; while, on the other hand, even the most persevering industry, and the strictest habits of sobriety and self-denial, will rarely enable a cottier or a cottier's son to rise to the station of a proprietor through the attainment of freehold property. The same differences which are here mentioned as existing between town and country in a great measure prevail between the outer and inner bygds as well. In like manner as many young men resort from country to town to seek their fortunes there, and, according to their personal qualities, either rise to the proprietary class, and swell the number of the sober men in it, or yield to the temptations that surround them, and not only remain to increase the number of the labouring class, but also the number of habitual drunkards in this; so also the more restless or the more ambitious of the young men belonging to the inner bygds remove to the outer ones, and very likely in numerous cases contribute to multiply the number of drunkards there, as the proximity of these bygds to the towns (the Norwegian towns are nearly all seaports) is felt in the greater inducements to drink and dissipa tion tion which are held out there in the places of public entertainment and the low pot-houses, more especially in the little fishing hamlets that cluster along the fjords. However, in these outer bygds the greater mobility that characterizes town life as compared with country life also in some measure prevails, the proximity of the sea offering increased resources in the form of fishing, trade, and navigation; and consequently the same changes of condition to which allusion has been made in connection with the towns may likewise be of frequent occurrence there, the more so as the very small freeholders, who constitute by far the greater proportion of the proprietary class, may, by intemperance, idleness, and other bad habits, easily be reduced to the lower class. The qualities and circumstances which are generally conceived to be conducive to sobriety are, piety, moral principle, and mental culture, together with the taste for purer and higher enjoyments, which is a consequence of these; further freedom from the most pressing cares of life, a position which encourages or necessitates constant industry and attention to duties, and a strongly-developed public opinion as to the shame and degradation attached to intemperance while, on the other hand, intemperance is generally fostered by a low state of mental development, which knows no higher enjoyment than the satisfaction of the bodily appetites; extreme poverty, with its attendant privation, not only of the comforts but of the decencies of life; legislative measures, or other depressing circumstances, which impede the free activity and enterprise of the people, and thus breed discontent; means of livelihood that necessitate a wandering life or frequent absences from home; and domestic discord, most likely to occur when marriages are contracted from mercenary motives and not from affection, which is very usual among the Norwegian peasantry. And all these circumstances we do indeed find telling for and against the state of sobriety in the various districts from which Mr. Sundt has obtained, in addition to the statistical returns which we have dwelt upon so minutely, reports giving a more or less detailed account of the increase or decrease of intemperance in the districts to which they refer. These reports, which embrace all parts of the country, and from which we have borrowed the description of the national customs given in previous pages, form a very interesting part of the book; though, of course, they are somewhat monotonous in character, which in some measure reconciles us to not being able to give more than a general view of their bearing. One circumstance we find is insisted on more frequently than any other, as exercising a beneficial effect on the condition of society, and that is, the decrease in the use of brandy, consequent on the legislative measures which have rendered the distillation and retail of it more difficult, and the article itself more expen sive; though many of the clergymen and schoolmasters who have drawn up the reports dwell with much regret on the introduction of so-called Bavarian beer and a kind of fruit wine as substitutes for brandy, which, though not likely to be quite so pernicious, because of their greater cost and inferior potency, nevertheless interfere considerably with the spread of sober habits. An improvement in public opinion as to the shame attaching to intemperance is also mentioned by many of the reporters, the greater number attributing this to the spread of enlightenment and to greater refinement of manners, which is also gradually leading to the discontinuance, or at least modification, of the old-fashioned customs in connection with weddings, funerals, &c., which have already been mentioned, it having in many places come to be considered 'vulgar' to be intoxicated, or even to have brandy on the table. Only a few of the reporters give credit to the introduction of temperance societies for any of the improvement that is visible, though some even of those who do not, allow that the temperance agitation has led to reflection, and has helped to enlighten conscience. Though the picture of the state of society throughout Norway, as afforded by these statistics and these reports, is painfully chequered, dark ignorance, barbarism, and vice still brooding over many a district, the view is, upon the whole, hopeful, for in very few places is drunkenness described as being on the increase, while in many it is declared to be on the wane, and in some to be utterly unknown, and with it, we may be sure, will disappear its attendant vices. But more than all we may hail as a beacon of hope the attention which the Norwegian Government and Legislature are giving to the subject, proving thereby that they regard drunkenness as one of the vices that canker so deeply the national life and well-being, that it behoves the rulers of a people to endeavour to eradicate it by all fair means in their power. ART. V.-1. The Social Hydra; or, The Influence of the Traffic of Pawnbrokers and Brokers on the Religious, Moral, and Social Condition of the Working Classes and the Poor. David Macrae, Jun. Glasgow, 1861. 2. Wee Pawns:' their Influence on Crime and Drunkenness, and their Organized Antagonism to Ragged and Industrial Schools. William Hector. Glasgow, 1856. 3. Proposed Bill for the Regulation of Wee Pawns and Unlicensed Brokers in Scotland. Glasgow, 1856. THE diversity of habit as respects thrift and unthrift in parti cular races and nations has long been acknowledged and. variously |