The
Tithes, Which Are Never Required In Kind, Are Divided Into Three
Parts - One To The King, Another To The Incumbent, And The Third To
Repair The Dilapidations Of The Parsonage.
They do not amount to
much.
And the stipend allowed to the different civil officers is
also too small, scarcely deserving to be termed an independence;
that of the custom-house officers is not sufficient to procure the
necessaries of life - no wonder, then, if necessity leads them to
knavery. Much public virtue cannot be expected till every
employment, putting perquisites out of the question, has a salary
sufficient to reward industry; - whilst none are so great as to
permit the possessor to remain idle. It is this want of proportion
between profit and labour which debases men, producing the
sycophantic appellations of patron and client, and that pernicious
esprit du corps, proverbially vicious.
The farmers are hospitable as well as independent. Offering once to
pay for some coffee I drank when taking shelter from the rain, I was
asked, rather angrily, if a little coffee was worth paying for.
They smoke, and drink drams, but not so much as formerly.
Drunkenness, often the attendant disgrace of hospitality, will here,
as well as everywhere else, give place to gallantry and refinement
of manners; but the change will not be suddenly produced.
The people of every class are constant in their attendance at
church; they are very fond of dancing, and the Sunday evenings in
Norway, as in Catholic countries, are spent in exercises which
exhilarate the spirits without vitiating the heart.
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