Form of Government.—Sweden is a hereditary and constitutional monarchy, based on the fundamental law of 1809, by which it was decreed that the succession should be in the male line; that the sovereign should profess the Lutheran faith; and have sworn fidelity to the laws. The diet, which meets every year, and remains sitting for three or four months, is composed of two chambers, which are both elected by the people. The first chamber consists of 127 members, who receive no payment, and are elected for nine years, their number being, however, dependent upon the amount of the population. They must be possessed of an income of about £225, and have attained the age of 35. The second chamber is composed of 194 members, elected for three years, on a lower scale of qualification as to property and age; and receiving payment for their attendance during each session of the, diet, and for their traveling expenses. Election to both chambers is by ballot. The diet exercises a strict control over the expenditure of the revenue, fixes the budget, and has power to take cognizance of the acts of the ministers and crown officers. The king's person is inviolable, and he can exercise a veto on the decrees of the diet. He is the supreme head of the law courts, nominates to all appointments, can declare war, make peace, and conclude foreign treaties. He is assisted by a council of state composed of 10 members, who are respon sible to the diet.
Law, etc.—The administration of the law is independent of the state, and presided over by the chancellor of justice, justitie kanslar, appointed by the king, and an attorney general, justitie ombudsmann, appointed by the diet. There were 587,381 cases brought before the courts in 1875, the large proportion of which were merely for slight offenses against the law. The expenses incurred annually for the support of the poor are about 6,000,000 rixdalers, which is nearly covered by the regular income obtained by the rates imposed for the purpose.
Sweden is divided administratively into 25 Dins, presided over by lansmen or chief magistrates, and subdivided into 117 fogderin, and 517 liinsmans districts. There are 90 chief towns (stiider), only a limited number of which have the right of trading with foreign ports, and 19 market-towns (Kopinger). Besides Stockholm, the capital (q.v.), only one town, Goteborg (71,000 in 1877), has a pop. of more than 50,000. Next in rank come Malmo, with 34,439; NorkOping, with 27,226; Gefle, with 18,137; and Karlskrona, with 17,787 inhabitants. Upsala, a cathedral and university town, which is the mIrst interesting spot in the kingdom, as the original seat both of Christianity and of the ancient Odinic faith, has a pop. of only 13,446.
Religion, etc.—The predominant form of religion in Sweden is the Lutheran; the official tables of the census for 1870 showing only 6,440 persons who belonged to other forms of faith, of whom 1918 were Baptists, and 1836 Jews, The affairs of the church are administered by 1 archbishop (of Upsala) and 11 bishops, whose collective dioceses include about 2,500 parishes, with about 3,500 pastors.
Education, is universally diffused among the Swedes by the agency of fasta (regular) and jlyttanda (ambulatory) schools in all the country districts. There were, in 1869, 2,303 of the former and 1206 of the latter kind, together with 3,410 infant schools, which were attended in all by 679,128 children, and instructed by 5,030 male and 2,115 female teachers. Public instruction is compulsory for all children, and the cost is defrayed by the nation. Ample means are supplied for a higher form of instruc tion in the lttrovtirk or gymnasia of the towns, and at the universities of Upsala and Lund. The Karolingska institute at Stockholm is the medical college of Sweden; and there are numerous technical, military, and other special collegiate institutions in the principal towns of the kingdom. The transactions of the two learned societies, the " Svenska Vetenskaps Selskap," and the " Svenska akademie," afford honorable testi moray to the advanced condition of scientific inquiry in Sweden. The royal library of Stockholm and those of Upsala and Lund number about 100,000 vols. each. That of Upsala is contained in a special building, Carolina 1?ediriva, to which is attached a botanical garden arranged on the Linneean system.
Roads, Railways, etc.—There were, in 1878, 12,000 English miles of high-roads in Sweden, and nearly double that length of way in parish and by-roads. In 1877 a length of 3,010 English miles of railway had been opened. In the year 1871 the number of passengers
conveyed was 1,639,204, and the receipts from this branch of the traffic were 2,896,184 rixdalers; while the whole of the returns were 7,784,860 rixdalers (R432,490). In 1875 the telegraphic lines measured 4,991 English miles, and, besides the 170 government tele graph stations, there were 351 stations in connection with railways and belonging to companies; 1,009,539 messages were transmitted, 'of which number 645,913 were from and for Sweden; and the receipts were for the same year 1,953,109 rixdalers. There passed 16,250,000 letters through the post-offices of Sweden in 1875, when the receipts were 3,650,000, and the expenses of the department 3,700,000 rixdalers.
History.—The legendary history of Sweden forms part of Scandinavian history. When we first hear of Sweden the country was inhabited by numerous tribes, kindred in origin but politically separate. Two principal groups, however, are recognizable— Goths in the south and Swedes in the north. These possessed in common a national sanctuary, the temple of Uppsala, which laid the basis of a later unification, for gradu ally the royal chieftains of Uppsala extirpated the inferior princes, the Hitrads and the Fylkis. Ingiald Ilrada, the last ruler of the old royal family of the Ynglingar, who drew their origin from Njord, sought to establish a single government in Sweden, and perished in the attempt. To the Ynglingar followed in Upland the dynasty of the Slcioldangar, which claimed to be descended from Skjold, son of Odin Erik Edmunds son, who belonged to this dynasty, is said to have acquired the sovereignty of the whole of Sweden about the end of the 9th century. The dawn of Swedish history (properly so called) now begins, and we find the Swedes constantly at war with their neighbors of Norway and Denmark-, and busily engaged in piratical enterprises against the eastern shores of the Baltic. See NORMANS and RussIA. Efforts to introduce Christianity (see ANSGAR) were made as .early as 829 but it was not till 1000 A.D. that Olof Sk5t konung, the Lap-king, was baptized, nor did the struggle between heathenism and the new religion cease till the burning of the temple of Upsala in the reign of Inge (1081)– I 1112). n 1155 Erik, surnamed the saint, gave a powerful impetus to the diffusion of Christian doctrines by building churches and founding monasteries. He undertook a crusade against the pagan Finns, and, having compelled them to submit to baptism, and established Swedish settlements among them, he laid the foundation of the union of Finland with Sweden. Erik's defeat and murder in 1160 by the Danish prince Magnus Henriksen, who made an unprovoked attack upon the Swedish king, was the beginning -)f a long series of troubles, and during the following 200 years, one short and stormy reign was brought to a violent end by murder or civil war only to be succeeded by another equally short and disturbed. At length, in 1389, the throne was offered by the Swedish nobles to Margaret, queen of Denmark and Norway, who, having gladly availed herself of the opportunity thus opened to her of uniting the three Scandinavian crowns into one, threw an army into Sweden, defeated the Swedish king Albert of Mecklenburg, who on the deposition of his maternal uncle Magnus had been called to the vacant throne, and by the union of Calmar in 1397 brought Sweden under one joint scepter with Den mark and Norway. In 1523 Sweden emancipated itself from the union with Denmark, which during the reigns of Hans and his sou Kristian II. (see DENMARK) had become hateful to the Swedes, and rewarded its deliverer, young Gustaf Vasa (see GrszAvus I.), by electing him king and declaring its independence of Denmark. Gustaf Vasa found an empty treasury, a kingdom exhausted by war, a haughty nobility and clergy (who arrogated the right of electing the sovereign, and who claimed exemption from all imposts), and a people overburdened with taxation and bad government and divided in regard to religion. On his death in 1560 he left to his successor a hereditary and well organized kingdom (in which the power of the nobles had been circumscribed, and that of the clergy broken, by the abrogation of Catholicism and the firm establishment of the reformed church under the jurisdiction of the state), a full exchequer, a standing army, and a well-appointed navy. Trade, manufactures, art, learning, and science owed their advancement in Sweden to this patriotic king.