Part 6 (2/2)

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.

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