BOOKS.
FINLAND.* •
THE author of a Girl s Ride in Iceland and other books of Scandinavian travel gives us here some fresh experiences. Through Finland in Carts, she is pleased to call it. We do not get to the "carts," it is true, till we are considerably more than half-way through the volume, and then they are used for one journey only, if we rightly understand Mrs. Tweedie, from Iiialini (Idensalmi in the map) to Kajana, a distance of about fifty miles. But they may be allowed to stand as symbols for a good deal of hardship endured by the author and her companions throughout their journeyings. The klirra, or cart, is a rough variation on the Norwegian carriole, a two-wheeled affair, carrying two, without hood—the Finland summer sun makes a hood very welcome—or springs. Few travellers will have the opportunity of using them, for surveys have already been made for a railway to Kajana, and in a few years Finland will be levelled up or down, as the case may be, to the rest of Europe. Lapland will still remain, it is true. Mrs. Tweedie proposed to go there, but though she is clearly not wanting in courage, she was deterred by the terrible accounts which she heard of it. Finnish mosquitoes are the most virulent of their kind, and domestic insects are more than sufficiently abundant, but Lapland in summer- nequeunt verba referre nefas.
Our traveller's first experience of Finland, or Suomi, as its natives call it, was at Helsingfors, a highly civilised town, except in the matter of carriages for hire, of which it possesses one only. But it is lighted with electricity, all the better houses are furnished with telephones, and the cycle is in full occupation. There are three thousand of these machines registered and numbered, for the Helsingfors police code requires this to be done, a hint from which our own authori- ties might well learn. The number protects the owner of the cycle against loss, and it gives the public an easy remedy in case of reckless riding. Finland is advanced in other matters besides these material conveniences. It has got, at least on paper, an admirable system of education, though the conditions of the country prevent the attainment of satisfactory results. The folk-schools, answering to our Board-schools, are main- tained by the States and Communes jointly, and are reported to be efficient, but the total attendance is but little over fifty thousand, and this out of a population that exceeds two millions. The deficiency is partly made up by the "ambu- latory schools." The children cannot traverse the great dis- tances that separate many of them from the school-buildings. Hence teachers go round the villages, and give a few weeks instruction in each. The Universities are open to both sexes on equal terms, though nominally a woman has to obtain special permission from the Russian Chancellor. This is now granted as a matter of course, though twenty years ago it was often refused. As the annual fees amount to something under 22, with a small addition for laboratory work, women have everything that they can desire in this respect. We are not sure that the curious variety of female employ- ments which Mrs. Tweedie quotes has quite the significance that she attributes to it. Civilisation has a tendency to restrict the employment of women in manual labour, while it enlarges in the direction of skilled work, whether of hand or brain. There are five hundred and fifty women who work as bricklayers, and seven hundred and sixty-five who load ships, while twenty are actually employed as slaughterers, the great majority, curiously enough, in towns. Mrs. Tweedie is shocked at the shiploading and slanghtering, but she is pleased at the variety of trades and occupations followed by her sex. Probably they are really relics of barbarism. In the matter of political and municipal rights the position of women in Finland is the same as in Great Britain. In the succession to an inheritance and property rights in general they are better off. Sons and daughters share alike whether the property be real or personal.
The political condition of Finland seems to be some- what chaotic. It enjoys Home-rule, a precarious pos- session, it may be said, seeing that it depends upon the goodwill of the Tsar, but, as long as it may last, genuine, for it means the right of taxation by the people's
• Through Finland in Carts. By Hrs. Alec Tweedie. London: Adam and Charles Black. representatives. The confusion comes in from internal divisions, originating in race and signified by language. There are two parties, Fennomana and Svecomans, who support respectively the claims of the Finnish and Swedish languages. How bitter the struggle sometimes becomes may be seen from Mrs. Tweedie's statements. On the one hand, the Svecoman newspapers insist that in the Swedish-speaking parishes no employer should be allowed to take a Finn into his employ, and should even be compelled to discharge any Finnish labourers who may be already settled there. On the other hand, the Fennoman public sometimes boycotts a Svecoman tradesman. The four orders of the Estates of the Duchy are equally divided between the two parties ; the clergy and the peasants are Fennoman, the nobles and the merchants Svecoman. It is only too likely that these dis- sensions may bring about a Russian intervention that would be disastrous to the liberties of Finland. At present, however, Nicholas II. is credited with liberal views concerning the province.
Among our traveller's personal experiences few are more interesting than her visit to the great monastery of Valamo, situated on an island in Lake Ladoga. It contains seventy monlm and four hundred probationers, some of the latter being transgressors who are sentenced to two or three years of monastic life as a penance, and who sometimes end by staying there altogether. All are under the rule of the Igumen (Hegoumenos). The monks are Nazarites, for no steel is ever permitted to touch their hair, which falls to their shoulders, sometimes almost to their waists. We are told that "a lovely auburn" was the prevailing colour, but that it was mostly dirty and unkempt. Cleanliness, it seems, is not one of the monastic virtues. Indeed, it would not be easy to cultivate it when one coat, renewed every third year, has to serve for everyday and all-day wear. The monastery is a great resort of pilgrims, three thousand sometimes coming in a single day. A guest-house for the better class contains two thousand beds, and there is another huge building for the accommodation of the poor.
Another side of the picture is given in the description of a Pappi at his Pristgard, otherwise a Lutheran minister in his parsonage, and of a service at a Luthersk Kyrka. The church held nearly four thousand, and was crowded from end to end, the sexes being divided by the middle aisle. This multitude of worshippers is drawn, it must be remembered, from an area which may very probably be reckoned by hundreds of square miles. The people, resembling in this respect the Scotch Highlanders, come many miles to the service. Naturally, they desire to have plenty of what they have taken so much pains to reach. In this case, the service had already lasted three hours when the travellers arrived, and was to go on for an hour and a half longer. Mrs. Tweedie was struck by the frequent resemblances to a Scotch service. Even the dogs were there as the collies are in the Highlands.
Among other curiosities of travel we may mention the Finnish bath, not unlike the Turkish function, but far more severe. A strange variety is the " ant-bath," believed, though the belief is going but of fashion, to be a sovereign remedy for rheumatism. Our traveller, wishing to " do " Finland thoroughly, did not fail to undergo this experience. The ants are put into a cushion, which floats on the surface of the water, staining it a deep black, and giving it a strange smell.
Mrs. Tweedie has given us a very readable book, which, however, will scarcely produce an overpowering desire to follow her example. One thing Finland seems to possess in perfection, and that is sport for the angler. A friend at Kajana told the author that he had caught in five successive days sixty-six grayling, weighing more than as many pounds, and thirty-four salmon, the largest of which weighed 52 lb., while two turned the scale at 40 lb., seven at 30 lb., and four at 20 lb. This, it is true, was twelve years ago, and fishing has a sad way of changing for the worse in twelve years. Still, Finland, which resembles "a sponge, in which the holes are lakes," must have something still left for the fisherman.
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