New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1857-05-23

i
.nov Of nothing more shocking than such attempts
| 70 substitute rockets and blue lights for Heavens
| eternal sunshine
Ga far a. regards their moral character, the Films
have as little for reproach as any other Peo-
pie. We find them universally honest and non
orabIe in their dealings as the Northern Swedes,
who are not surpassed in the world in this respect.
Yet their countenances express more cunning and
reserve. and the virtue may be partly negative
one, resulting from that Incidence which charac-
terizes the Frigid and the Torrid zones. Thus,
also. notwithstanding physical signs which denote
more ardent animal passion than their neghbors,
they are equally chaste, and have high q stand
ard of sexual purity. Legitimate births are quite
rare and are looked upon as lasting shame and
disgrace to both parties. The practice of bund-
ling which, until recently, was very common
among Finnish lovers, very seldom led TO such re-
suits, and their marriage speedily removed the dis
honor Their manners, socially, in this respect,
are curiously contradictory Thus, while both
sexes freely minge in the bath, in state of nature,
while the women unhesitatingly scrub, rub and dry
their husbands brothers or male friends, while the
salutatiOn for both sexes is an embrace with the
right arm, a kiss is considered grossly immodest
and improper. A Finnish woman expressed the
greatest astonshment and horror, at hearing from
Mr.. Wolley that it was a very common thing in
England for husband and wife to kiss each other
"If my husband were to attempt such thing
said She 81 would beat him about the ears so that
"be should feel it for week" Yet in converse
a. 1a;r nd unrosarvad fhnuoh hv
no means gross. They acknowledge that such
things as generation, CESSATION and parturition
ist and it may be that this very absence of mystery
tends to keep chaste SO excitable and imaginative
race.
Notwithstanding their superstition, their love OF
poetry, and the wild, rich, musical character of
their language, there is a singular absence of le-
gendary lore in this part of Finland. Perhaps this
is owing to the fact that their ancestors have emil
grated hither principally within the last two cen
turtles, from the early home of the race-Tavast-
land the shores of the Pajana Lake and the Gulf of
Finland. 1t is difficult matter ~ preserve family
traditions among them, or even any extended gene
illogical record, from the circumstance that Finn
takes his name, not only from his fathers surname
but from his residence. Thus Isah takes the
name of "Anderinpoika" from his father Ander,
and adds Menu" the local name of his habta
tion His son Nils will be called Nils Isakipoika,
with the addition of the name Of his residence,
wherever that may be-; and his family name will be
changed as often his house. There may be a
dozen different names in the of one genera
ton and the list soon becomes too complicated and
confused for an uneducated memory. tits no won
der therefore, that the Finn knows very little eI-
cept about what happened during his own life, or,
at best, bis fathers. have never heard the Kale
wala spoken of, and doubt very much whether 1t ID
known to the natives of this region The only
songs we have heard, north of Haparanda, have
been bymns-devout, possibly, but dismal. There
must be ballads and household songs yet alive, but
the recent spiritual favor hoo sioHsSa sh0nr Nr the
time.
l was at first little surprised to find the natives
of the North so slow, INDECENT and improvident.
We have an idea that cold climate is bracng and
stmulating-ergo, the further north you go, the
more active and energetic you will find the people
But the touch of ice is like that of fire. The Trop
les relax, the Pole benumbs and the practical re-
suit is the same in both cases. In the long, long
Winter, when there are but four hours of twilight
to twenty of darkness-when the cows are housed,
the wood cut, the hay gathered the barley bran and
fir bark slowed away for bread and the Summers
catch of fish salted-what can man do, when his
load of wood or hay is hauled home, but eat gossip
and sleepl To bed at nine, and out of it at eight
in the morning, smoking and doing between the
slow performance of his few daily duties, he be-
comes at last as hstless and dull ASA alternating
bear. In the Summer he has perpetual daylight,
and need not hurry. Besides, why should be give
himself special trouble to produce an unusually
large crop of fax or barley, when single night
| may make his labors utterly proftlessi Even in
midsummer the blighting frost may fall: Nature
! seems TO take cruel pleasure in thwarting him:
he is fortunate only through chance and thus sort
of Arab fatalism and acquiescence in whatever hap
pens, takes possession of him. His mprovidence
is also to be ascrbed to the same cause Such fear
| full famine and suffering exists this Winter in
| Finland and Lapland might no doubt have been par
TALLY prevented, but no human power could have
wholly forestalled it.
The Polar Zone was never designed for the abode
of Man. In the pre-Adamite times, when England
was covered with palm forests and elephants
ranged through Siberia, things may have been
widely different, and the human race then Of there
was any may have planted vineyards on these
| frozen hills and lived in bamboo huts. But since
the geological and revolutions, and the es-
Enlistment Of the terrestrial regime, l cannot for
the life Of me see what ever induced beings endowed
with human reason to transplant themselves hither
l.