Morris tribune., 1909-01-23
NORWAY.

In Hallingdal and vicinity the pea
pie have lately been very much
stirred UP by a series of revival meet,
ings which have been conducted by
rowing evangelists, who claim they
have "the gift of tongues" The other
evening one of these individuals went
to a place where country dance was
going on and dealt one of the dance
leaders a blow on the cheek "in the
name of the Lord" all of which, OF
course, ended in free-for-all fight, in
which many people were rather
roughly handled. Since these meet
fngs started in that section of the
country there have been two cases OF
pronounced insanity and the authori
ties have begun to make rigid in
vestigation.
Lars Svanstrom celebrated his TWEEN
ty-tifth anniversary as a book publish,
er in Christiania the other day, when
he was the recipient of many con.
gratulations from his friends at home
and abroad. Mr.. Svanstrom has fol
a number of years been a director in
the Alb. Cammermeyer Co., and an as,
Sociate director in the Gyldendalske
Publishing company. He was born in
Skenninge, Sweden, and emigrated to
Norway about thirty years ago, where
he at once became identified with the
publishing business. He is married
to niece of Bjornstjerne Bjornson
and is one of the best known business
men in Christiania.
The arrival of extremely cold wealth
er has caused much suffering to the
poor people of Christiania. 1t has also
driven large number of Workingmen
out of employment, so that the al.
ready large list of unemployed is get
ting larger every day. Under such
circumstances, it will during the next
few weeks be difficult matter for the
city authorities to secure food and
clothing for all the unfortunate ones.
Still, Christiania people are very gen.
erous and the charity organizations
are always receiving willing aid, but
often, in spite of the fact that there
are willing hearts the purse strings do
not reach far enough.
The players at the National theater
in Christiania refuse to use the So
called "landsmaaP' popular country
dialecD and there is now some talk of
establishing theater in which this
dialect may be used. Among the up
per strata Of society there is much OBJ
lection, to the adoption of the lands
maal' and it will be interesting to see
which party will win out in the long
run. The forces seem about equally
divided and the Language war; there
fore promises to be hard fought and
of long duration.
Bjornstjerne Bjornson, who recently
celebrated his seventy-sixth birthday,
is at present travelling abroad in the
interest of his health. 1t will be re-
membered that the distinguished au-
thor was constrained to take to his
bed about three months ago, after
completing one of his lecture tours.
During his visit abroad this time Mr..
Bjornson will spend most of his time
in France and Italy, principally in
Rome, where he seems to feel especial
ly at home.
From Trondhjem comes the report
that many people perished and much
property was destroyed during the re-
cent storms in northern Norway. The
bodies of twenty fishermen were
washed ashore not far from Trondhjem
and a steamer bound for Spitzbergen
with twenty-five men aboard is re-
ported lost. Terrific storms all along
the northern coast have been coming
along in rapid succession, causing
much damage to the shipping indus
try.