There is a custom in Sweden and other northern countries of taking a kind of preliminary meal immediately before dinner. On a sideboard numerous cold dishes are set out of sardines, ham, tongue, sausages, &c., and invariably two or three decanters of raw spirit, from which each guest takes a “schnapps” or “dram.” If an Englishman indulged in these so-called appetisers, as the Swedes are in the habit of doing, he would spoil his dinner, and they are quite astonished to hear the preliminary dram spoken of as provocative, not of appetite, but of intemperance. Then, again, the author saw people in Stockholm, in the middle of summer, in warm weather, drinking hot grog around the cafés listening to the music, a practice which he has never witnessed in any other European capital; and wine appears to be very largely consumed both by gentlemen and ladies. Two principles are, however, in operation in Sweden which cannot fail to prove effectual in diminishing intemperance. One is, that the people are satisfied of the necessity of adopting legislative measures for discontinuing the drink traffic; and the other that, as in Gothenburg, for example, the profits of the sale, are applied to diminish the burdens of the ratepayers. In other words, the trade is being made unpopular and unremunerative, neither of which, unfortunately, is yet the case in England.[325] CHAPTER XIV. AMERICA—THE CREOLES AND INDIANS OF THE RIVER PLATE—THE UNITED STATES DURING THE FIRST HALF OF THIS CENTURY—THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS—DRINKING IN THE UNITED STATES AT THE PRESENT TIME—LICENSING AND PROHIBITORY LEGISLATION—THE MAINE LIQUOR LAW—ITS OPERATION AND PARTIAL FAILURE—PERMISSIVE LEGISLATION—INEBRIATE ASYLUMS. Once more we must follow the course of civilisation westward, this time across the Atlantic, and in the New World we shall find much to interest us in connection with drinking habits and their effects upon society. Every phase of the subject may be studied in America—the aborigines, with their primitive methods of preparing intoxicating drinks and their unbridled indulgence in them; the half-caste, who has acquired all the vices but few of the virtues of civilisation; the European emigrant, usually sober if a German; often intemperate if he comes from Great Britain or Ireland; and finally, we find there the Puritan spirit in full operation, and the law, backed by public opinion, effectually suppressing not alone drunkenness, but in many places even the manufacture and sale of intoxicating beverages. A curious and very repulsive feature of our subject presents itself in that part of South America which is watered by the River Plate, but it must be referred to, first, because it exhibits in striking contrast the drinking habits of civilised and barbarous races; and, secondly, because it almost places beyond a doubt the question of the aboriginal tendency to use native intoxicating beverages.