eating-place for the undergraduates, from four to five hundred being
served every day.

Such an institution as the "Steam Kitchen" is especially suitable to a
Norwegian city, where a portion of the population work for very small
wages, the average income of the wage-earner being less than $100 a
year--so small that, measured by the American standard, it would seem
a difficult problem to find food, clothing, and shelter for a family.

Few Norwegians suffer from poverty or privation, even through the cold
and gloomy winters that are eight months long. Our own people might
die, or at least suffer seriously under the same circumstances, but
the Norwegians are a hardy race. They have inherited the power of
endurance and the ability to survive hunger and thirst and discomforts
better than most races.

There are comparatively few poor in Sweden, probably fewer than in any
other European country except Norway and Switzerland, because of the
low cost of living, the sparse population, and the ability of all
men and women to find work if they are willing to earn their own
subsistence. Able-bodied paupers are compelled to work upon poor
farms, but the aged, decrepit and invalids who are dependent upon
public charity are kindly taken care of by what is called outdoor and
indoor relief. In the cities are asylums and almshouses similar to
those in the United States, but in the parishes, as a rule, the care
of the poor is assigned to individual farmers and others who
are willing to take care of them under contract, subject to the
supervision of a board of guardians, of which the pastor is the
chairman and the elders of the church are members. This has long been
a practice in Sweden, but is not universal.