prejudiced me against thein at first; yet I found their taste Very
agteeable, arid was soon quite reconciled to them. How they would
keep through the winter was with me a dubious point, for they had
both the taste and appearance o f not being fully ripe.
The tobacco is planted in veiy small patches, and one of these is
attached to almost every house. Whën the leaves have reached their,
proper size and age, they are pulled off and treated pretty much as they
are in Virginia, In the year 1812, a very great proportion of the
crop must have been lost ; for I saw many fields in which the tobacco
leaves were quite black and shrivelled.
About two miles before we reached Örebro, in an opening in the
wood on the south side o f the road, we saw the remains Of two
malefactors huhg in chains : one of them was a soldier, and the other
à countryman of Nerike. They had murdered a Swedish boy, a
pedlar, who had treated them with brandy in a publick house, and
unluckily pulled out a bunch o f bank notes to pay the bill ; the two
men followed the boy and demanded his money, he told them that he
had little enough for hitaselfj and therefore, could not spare any for
them ; upon this they knocked out his brain* and made off With their
booty, They were Soon after seized, tried, and condemned for the
murder. The usual mode o f punishing murderers in Sweden is to ctig
off the head and right hand at one and the same time. The only
ether instance, which occurred to me in Sweden o f a criminal hung ih
chains, was on the road side a considerable way to the north Of Sala,
in Westmanland. This criminal had been beheaded about a year before
for the murder o f his own father. It would seem to fee the custom in
Sweden to hang in chains all those criminals that are executed foi
murder. Two instances being all that occurred to me in travelling
over a very considerable portion of the country, we see that this
odious crime, so common in some o f the southern parts o f Europe, is
very uncommon indeed in Sweden.
A little to the wdst o f •Örebro, there was a camp o f Swedish soldiers.
The number did not appear to exceed a regiment. When we came to
the bridge, at the west a id o f the town, We were Stopped by two
soldiers who were upon guard at the end o f the bridge. They conveyed
us across the bridge, and delivered us over to two other soldiers,
who marched by our side to a house a little way on, where was the
officer upon guard. He came out, demanded our passports, and after
having perused them, allowed us to go on.
This ceremony, which detained us about five minutes, appeared to
me at first useless, if not ridiculous. It was probably intended as a
lesson of duty to the soldiers upon guard. How the Swedes, who
consider themselves as a free people, and really seem in many respects
entitled to the name, can reconcile such ceremonies with freedom it is
difficult to say. What a sensation would it produce in Great Britain,
i f a regiment o f soldiers were to take possession o f one of the great
roads leading to Liverpool or Birmingham (for Örebro is in Sweden
what these towns'are in Britain, in proportion to the capital), and
allow no persons to pass till they had ascertained where they were
going and what was their object.
i was still less pleased with another ceremony which we were
obliged to go through, just as we reached the gate which constitutes
the beginning of Örebro. Here we were stopped by a custom-house
officer, who informed us that it was his duty to examine our baggage.
Upon inquiry we were informed fay our servant that such officers were
placed at the entrance of all the considerable towns in Sweden; that it
was customary for travellers to give ,them a little money, in consideration
of which, they waved the ceremony o f examining the baggage,
and allowed the carriage to proceed. We gladly embraced this alternative;
for the necessity of unloading all our baggage, and exposing it
in the open street, appeared to us very hard. What the use o f such
custom-house officers can be it is -very difficult to determine. As they
hardly ever examine the baggage, they can be o f no use in preventing
illicit articles from feeing introduced into the town, even supposing this
to have been their original intention. Such a practice comes to neither
more nor less than imposing -an arbitrary tax upon travellers, at the
entrance into every town. But as this tax is put into the packets o f
the collectors, who might have been more usefully employed some
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