In 1836, prostitution was forbidden, by express enactment, throughout all Sweden, and women who had not a legally recognized occupation were liable to imprisonment as disorderly characters. The prostitute, of course, came within the category. It was asserted at the time that there was no common prostitution, but a counter statement was made by the jurist Angelot, who affirmed that every house of entertainment was a brothel, and every servant a loose woman. This prohibitory system did not work so well as had been anticipated, and in 1837 a change was effected. A large hotel was taken by the corporation, and, after the plan of various cities in the Middle Ages, was managed by public officers. Thus a government brothel was established. Nor did this lewdness by authority have the desired effect. The brothel was filled with women, but no customers appeared. Private brothels were resorted to for a time, and were opened under regular licenses. They have now disappeared, and as the inefficient police management never succeeded in repressing illicit prostitution, even while tolerated brothels were in existence, it will surprise no one to learn that Stockholm is now one vast, seething hot-bed of private harlotry. There are Lock Hospitals throughout Sweden, established by public funds, and kept up by direct taxation as a charge upon the municipal rates. The Stockholm Hospital for syphilis in 1832 received seven hundred and one patients, of whom one hundred and forty-eight were from the country, and the remainder from the city. The capital contained in that year 33,581 persons of both sexes above the age of fifteen, consequently _one person in every sixty-one was affected with syphilis_. The superficial aspect of society in Sweden is certainly not such as here described. The upper classes are cultivated, polite, and observant of all the usual refinements of modern society, while to the humbler classes, excepting that intercourse is free and unrestrained among them, there is no ground for attributing any unusual departure from modesty and propriety. Neither are the laws remarkably stringent: although difficulties are thrown in the way of affiliation, they are the same in principle as those which have been adopted by the modern statute law of England. Still, that there is such an excess of immorality can not be doubted. The official statistics of the country prove it, were any possible doubt thrown upon the statements of the many travelers, of the highest repute for correctness and reliability, who have noticed it. The latest publication upon the matter is from Bayard Taylor, who, writing from Stockholm under date May 1, 1857, says,