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EVIDENCES OF HONESTY.
u
There are no policemen, gens rfarmes, or any other
official order-keepers here; we have seen none in any
part of Christiania all day. There are some six or
seven hundred people in the gardens and theatre, and
not one questionable woman or riotous man is visible.
The Norwegians are sometimes spoken of in England
as a drunken people, but there is no indication here
of even the earliest preliminary stages of intoxication.
After leaving the gardens, we walk about the city,
in semi-dayliglit, between eleven and twelve o’clock.
A few people are yet moving, but none of the "
unfortunates," who have possession of our streets at this
hour, are visible here. In some parts of the city, we
walk for nearly half a mile and see no one: no police,
no watchman; and we hear no sound. A city sleeping
in the midst of so much light has a strange effect on
the imagination ; the charmed palace of the sleeping
beauty seems to be somewhere in the neighbourhood.
The honesty of the Norwegians is strikingly
demonstrated by the condition of the shop-windows. Many
of them containing articles of hardware, books, and
other portable goods of some value, are without shutters,
the wares exposed behind common crown glass panes;
and this in a capital city where we saw but one
watchman in the course of a three-quarters of an hour walk
through the streets.
When I landed in the morning, I felt for the first
hour or two impressed with a vague sense of
embarrassment, arising from a sensation of having forgotten
or missed an unknown something. Had I left my stick
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