A Polish woman was arrested in a New Jersey town and fined two dollars and a half for putting ashes in the street. When she found out what her offense was she was amazed, because in her country the law required that she should put the ashes there to make good roads!

Schools for teaching English and simple American civics are needed in the smaller towns and factory towns, and better systems of instruction in the cities. The establishment of state departments or commissions of immigration, which shall primarily protect, educate, and distribute the immigrants within the state and not merely seek laborers, is worth considering. These should coöperate with the federal government and take up the work where it lays it down when the foreigner becomes a resident of the

state.

Extension of free loan associations, neighborhood lodging-houses, friendly visiting of newly-arrived foreigners, and other movements that will bring the immigrant into relation with persons who know the standards and opportunities and ways of American city life.

Establishment of a federal system of protection of immigrants in transit and until they really reach their destination, and of compulsory railway protection.

Enforcement (and adequate machinery for the purpose) of the few laws which specifically protect immigrants.

The next decade can be profitably spent by those interested in the immigrant in working out a system of protection to meet the system of exploitation, and this will in a measure explain if not meet many of the "problems of immigration."

As I look out of my study window, this December morning, across the garden and beyond the little gorge which flanks it and through which runs the street below, I see the children in the neighboring public school enjoying their brief hourly recess in their playground, in the dim light of the dawn. For, although it is nearly half-past nine, the sun has not yet risen. Later in the day he will bathe my whole garden and housefront with his welcome rays, for we shall be free to-day from the black, grimy fog which besets Christiania during the last two months of the year, —a fog thick and heavy with the suffocating smoke of the town. Fortunately a half-hour, by the electric tram-car, takes one out of it to Holmenkollen, on the mountain overlooking the city. But the brightest winter day is short in this latitude, for the sluggard sun will set again a very few minutes after three.

It pleases my fancy that our Legation stands perched upon one of the crags of curiously distorted rocky strata that occur here and there in Christiania, thus isolated from surrounding buildings; for this, by the accepted usage of nations, is American territory, and it seems to me fitting that the soil our flag floats over should be so separated from the bordering city streets and buildings.

Many of the residences of Christiania stand thus villa-like in the midst of pretty gardens, which, in summer, are full of bloom, and give the streets a peculiar charm and sense of openness. Within, the people live simple wholesome lives, kindly and hospitable, with that truest hospitality which invites the guest to share in good cheer without ostentation or display. Dinner is at three or four o'clock, served by trim, fresh-looking

maids, and supper at eight, when, except on formal occasions, the guest is free to forage around the table for himself. Host and hostess drink the health of each guest with the word "skaal,” replied to by the eyes over the glass after drinking. Adjourning to the drawing-room, the guests thank both master and mistress of the house and on the next meeting never fail to say, "Thanks for the last time." One is everywhere struck by the frank and unaffected simplicity of the life and the straightforward kindliness of the people.

The scope of women's employment is much wider in Norway than with us. Even large public banquets are chiefly served by maids, and in the shops customers are waited upon, generally, by sales women. This is by no means confined to a few classes of shops. In shoeshops, for both men and women, in jewelers' and silversmiths', in fact in almost every branch of retail trade, while women are not exclusively employed to wait upon customers, they decidedly predominate. In the banks also, in the post and telegraph office, and upon the railways, women are much employed, not only in clerical capacities, but for work exclusively performed in America by

men.

In the University of Christiania both sexes attend the lectures indiscriminately and are upon the same footing. In the practice of medicine, and especially of dentistry, there are quite as many female as male practitioners. In a small block of buildings close to the Legation I have counted the signs of six dentists, three of whom are women. Even in the law women are admitted to practice.

The students of the university form a conspicuous and interesting element in

Education may be said to be universal in Norway. The commonest laborer can at least read and write, and many peasants attain a considerable degree of culture. Liestöl, for instance, who is an exponent of the school which is endeavoring to bring the ancient language of the country, called "maalet," still spoken by the peasants in certain districts of the west, into general use as the language of Norway, has educated himself very highly. He is a true peasant, laboring in the fields; still he has not only found time to do considerable literary work in connection with this movement, but has also acquired a very considerable knowledge of English.

The language of Norway is, or at least appears to be, in a transitional state. That which is usually spoken is identical with Danish, with some differences in pronunciation, and some slight modification of meaning due to sectional conditions. It is in fact the Danish language acquired by Norway during its union with that country, which lasted some six hundred years.

Of late there has been a tendency to draw away from the Danish tongue and set up, or evolve, a distinct language. The movement is led on the one hand by Björnson, who in his writings adopts a spelling quite his own, differing considerably from that of the ordinary literature, and on the other by certain writers, who, like Garborg, write in the old maalet. The word "maal" means language or tongue, and the final "et" is simply the VOL. 101 - NO. 2

suffix of the definite article. Maalet therefore means, "the language." As I write, a measure has just to-day been introduced in the Storthing to regulate by law the orthography of the language.

The daily life of the students is simple, and dissipation rare. The studies are seriously pursued, and good scholarship and ability are rewarded by the respectful appreciation and popular regard of fellow students. Yet there is no lack of frank and hearty ebullition of spirits. Withal there is an unaffected simplicity about these student pleasures which reminds one of the college days of an earlier generation in our own universities.

The students of the University of Christiania are provided with an admirable general club-house, in a central part of the city, where they have, in a plain" and simple fashion, such food and refreshments as they may choose to order, including beer and wine, if they wish it, and where, in short, they enjoy an entire freedom, which is rarely abused. For these students possess that quality of selfrespect which is preeminently characteristic of the Norseman.

In this assembly building, or club, the students, in winter, not only enjoy their recreation and that exchange of ideas so essential to wholesome mental growth, but give their balls and other entertainments in a straightforward and unpretentious fashion. The Students' Ball I attended there was managed with a decorum and efficiency which would have been highly creditable to more experienced men of the world. There was no ostentation of elaborate decoration, but the bright young faces and the pretty white gowns were the better set off against the plain but tastefully colored walls. It was chaperoned by two ladies of social prominence, but otherwise the young girls were without other protection than their own good sense, and their well-founded confidence, and that of their parents, in the entire trustworthiness of their student escorts.

Early in winter the students devote a

week to a grand carnival, when the entire club building is given over to a sort of mock country fair. Here you may witness, in the great hall and exhibition room, a burlesque circus, with an amusing band, led by a conductor who gravely imitates the affectations of some orchestral leaders. Through the rooms are other amusing satires upon interests of the day. There you may, for a few öre, have three shots, with balls, at caricatures of the cabinet ministers. Hit one, and another political character takes his place. At another booth, arranged in imitation of a railway book-stall, are clever parodies on the popular novels of the day. There, in that farther room, called the "North-West Passage," ices are served. Across the street, in the university gymnasium, a stage has been erected, and here is given a very clever burlesque of an Italian opera, - a real old-fashioned burlesque, no modern imitation cheap shows, no topical songs and no dances. Just an old-fashioned burlesque gravely gone through with, the excellent music well sung and all the accessories simple but sufficient; and short withal, so that the spectators' risible muscles do not become moulded into a stereotyped smile.

The intense dramatic feeling and earnestness of the players is perhaps, at times, insufficiently restrained, but as a rule the parts are played with taste as well as with vigor and freshness. The sincerity with which the minor parts are acted, and the natural manner in which all the players unite in the support of one another, add greatly to the realism of the production. The by-play of the minor performers is sustained, without becoming tiresome. If a number of people are on the stage together they appear to engage in conversation in a perfectly natural manner, without any appearance of forced "stage business.” Of course this drilling of the minor actors and supernumeraries is chiefly due to the care and taste which Mr. Björnson has devoted to the stage management of his large company. But it must be said that he has excellent material to work with.

In all that precedes I have been speaking of the National Theatre of Christiania which, while it receives a royal subsidy, is on the other hand burdened with a heavy municipal tax. It is to Mr. Björn Björnson, the son of the great Norwegian writer and poet, that Christiania is indebted for this really splendid temple of the dramatic muse. It was by his efforts that the needed funds for its erection were secured, and it has been under his management that it has produced the beautifully staged plays of his distinguished father, of Henrik Ibsen, and of other less known national playwrights.

The theatre itself is provided with every most modern convenience and comfort for audience, management, and actors. The auditorium is comfortable and well ventilated; the orchestra, for which ample room is provided, out of the immediate view of the audience, but not concealed from it, is large and of the very best. The stage is of vast proportions, adequate for the production of the most elaborate pieces, and provided with every modern mechanical appliance as well as with a corps of unsurpassed scenic art

ists. Much of the scene-painting reaches a very high degree of artistic excellence. Nothing of its sort could exceed the beauty and truth to nature in the scenery of Peer Gynt, depicting Norwegian landscapes. The play is given with Grieg's exquisite music, and it is interesting to see the great composer in the audience, as one frequently may, listening to his own composition and witnessing the play for which he composed the music.

It is perhaps the ensemble in the production of this piece that is most worthy of remark. Its perfect evenness of sustained execution entitles it to rank as a masterpiece of artistic stage management. To single out any special performer in this admirable presentation of Ibsen's romantic drama seems hardly fair to the rest of the work. Yet one can scarcely refrain from remarking upon Mr. Christiansen's impersonation of the title rôle, a really fine piece of dramatic work.

It is said that Ibsen intended; in Peer Gynt, to typify the national character. This is probably hardly a fair statement, for Peer Gynt certainly does not stand for the type of Norwegian manhood. The shiftless sensual vagabond, the boastful purposeless dreamer that Ibsen depicts in Peer Gynt, no more typifies the Norwegian than he does humanity in general. The story is told that, to somebody who asked Ibsen what he had in mind in writing Peer Gynt, he replied that none but God and himself ever knew, and for his part he had forgotten.

The scene between Peer Gynt and the three Saeter girls on top of the mountain is given with truly wonderful effect. The mad abandon of these weird creatures in their moonlight dance, luring the inflammable sensualist on by their wild laughter and derisive songs, is done with rare intensity. This and the scene with the Troll King's daughter are bits of really fine dramatic work. Much of the play, especially in the last act, good as it is as literature, is lacking in dramatic incident. It was not originally intended

for the stage, and it has required some adaptation to make its performance possible. Indeed, the dramatic interest of the play, though not that of the psychological study, ends with the death of old Aase, beautiful as the stage-setting continues to be up to the final fall of the curtain.

For my own part I suspect that Ibsen had no further purpose in writing Peer Gynt than to set for himself a problem in psychology, working out the mental and moral development of the principal character in the play, given certain traits and environment, and that he introduced the Norwegian folklore, which gives the local color, merely as an artistic framing, like the scenic accessories, not with any intention of stamping Peer Gynt himself as a product peculiar to Norway. Most of Ibsen's plays have a strong local coloring of his own country and people.

The production of A Doll's House, contrasting so completely as it does with Peer Gynt, is nevertheless given with the same careful study of detail as the more spectacular piece. The simple, homely room, which is the background throughout the play, is a most minutely faithful reproduction of such a parlor, in just such a flat, as you may find by the hundred in Christiania. It is the typi

cal home of the Norwegian bank clerk. You are unmistakably in Christiania. Through the door which opens at the back of the scene you catch, from time to time, glimpses of the narrow hallway and the outer door leading to the staircase. The fire before which Nora and Helmar sit is in the tall porcelain stove of the country. The scene is even set to show the architectural arrangement of the rooms, making it clear that Helmar's study can only be reached by passing through the parlor; for a jog in the wall, bringing the angle well upon the stage, gives visible evidence of the construction. The performance itself is admirable, the acting restrained, for the most part, and the whole very real and living.

At several of the minor theatres the