Note 13 — Chapter VIII · MAKING A NIGHT OF IT.

Since the abolition of capital punishment in Norway—a measure that does not seem to answer at all—murderers are confined, like other criminals, in the castle at Christiania. They may be seen in dresses of which each sleeve and leg has its own colour, sweeping the streets and doing other public work; and a very disgusting sight it is. The average of crime is very high in Norway—perhaps higher than in any country known, and particularly crimes of violence. This may be accounted for, partly by their wonderful drunkenness, and partly by the very inefficient state of the Church, and the almost total absence of the religious element in an education which is artificially forced by state enactments. In Norway there is a very great disproportion between intellect and religion.