one in the United States to ask, "Wholesale Merchant MacVeigh, will
you kindly pass the butter?" or "Banker Hutchinson, will you escort
Fru Board of Trade Operator Jones to the table?" But that is the
custom in Sweden and it is observed by children as well as grown
people. A lisping child will approach a guest, make a pretty little
bob-courtesy, and say, "Good morning, Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court Fuller," or "Good night, Representative in Congress Boutell."
It is customary for ladies to print their maiden names upon
their visiting cards in smaller type, under their married names,
particularly if they have a pride of family and want people to know
their ancestry.

To see the old Swedish customs that have almost entirely disappeared
from the country, one must go to the hill districts of Dalecarlia,
where the people are so unlike the rest of the Swedes in their dress,
their customs and habits, and in many other respects as to almost seem
another race.

The Dalecarlians are great dancers, and the social gatherings at
their homes during the winter are always accompanied by that form of
amusement. During the summer they dance in the open air. On St. John's
Day the entire population, old and young, dance around a May-pole
erected at some convenient place, and at harvest time, whenever the
last sheaf in a field is pitched upon the cart or the stack, it is
customary for somebody to produce a musical instrument, a violin,
a nyckleharpa, a harmonicum, or perhaps only a mouth organ, and
everybody--for the boys and girls of the family all work together in
the hay and harvest fields--join in a dance before returning home.

The dances are original and often interesting. One of the most ancient