During the first half of the present century, the Swedes are considered by some persons to have been the most drunken people on the face of the earth;[311] and one well-known historian says that about the year 1828 the amount of crime over all Sweden was equal to that of the most depraved cities in Great Britain, whilst the illegitimate births in Stockholm were “one in two and three-tenths, exceeding even the proportion of Paris itself.”[312] This state of things the author in question attributed to the destructive passion for ardent spirits. Other writers have regarded the accounts of drunkenness in Sweden as somewhat exaggerated,[313] but all are agreed that the production and consumption of spirituous liquors were out of all proportion to the number of its inhabitants, and that the upper classes especially were most intemperate. We may state at once that the worst accounts of Swedish intemperance in former times have been based upon certain statistics which need further elucidation, for at present they appear to be erroneous, but of that the reader will presently judge for himself. Gustavus III.[314] attempted to make the distillation of spirits a royal monopoly, but this created such a dissatisfaction that a modification was soon made in the law, and every little landowner who was prepared to pay a small fee for a license was allowed to distil spirits. This system continued to expand until at length nearly every one in Sweden who felt disposed to turn distiller was enabled to do so. Every burgher in the towns, we are told, had the right to retail spirits. “The effect was fearful national drunkenness beyond the excess of all other nations, and the whole country may have been said to have been deluged with spirits.” But now let us descend to details. Alison says that at the time of his writing there were “no less than 150,000 manufactories of liquid hell-fire, as they have been well denominated, which distil annually thirty millions of gallons of spirits for the consumption of three millions of people.”[315] This estimate, the reader will remark, gives an annual consumption of ten gallons per head of the whole population. Mr. Carnegie, who resided in Sweden from 1830 to 1845, says in his evidence before the Lords’ Committee, that in the former year “the number of stills amounted to 173,000, producing, as well as can be calculated, a quantity equal to ten gallons per head of the population.”[316] Morewood treats the matter differently.[317] He speaks of the extent of dram-drinking which prevailed in Sweden in 1830. The population, he says, was 2,904,538, of whom half may be considered consumers of brandy. These may be divided into three classes, according to the number of drams taken daily:—