Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1921.djvu/1356

 1304

SWEDEN

with 257 students. In 1919 there were 77 public secondary schools, with 27,384 pupils ; 51 people's high schools, 3,486 pupils ; 15 normal schools for elementary schoolteachers, 1,971 pupils ; 2 high and 7 elementary technical schools, about 4,000 pupils ; 5 navigation schools, 289 pupils ; military schools, agricultural schools, veterinary and other special schools ; besides institutions and schools for deaf mutes and the blind. Public elementary instruction is gratuitous and compulsory (since 1842), and children not at- tending schools under the supervision of the Government must furnish proofs of having been privately educated. The school age is 7 to 14 years. In 1919 there were 17,085 elementary schools, with 24,265 teachers and 706,841 pupils.. Among the recruits (Bevaring) of 1916 only 0'16 per cent, were unlettered, only 0'32 per cent, unable to write.

Justice and Crime.

The administration of justice is entirely independent of the Government. Two functionaries, the Justitie-Kansler, or Chancellor of Justice, and the Justitie-Ombudsman, or Attorney-General, exercise a control over the admini- stration. The former, appointed by the King, acts also as a counsel for the Crown ; while the latter, who is appointed by the Diet, has to extend a general supervision over all the courts of law. The Kingdom, which possesses one Supreme Court of Judicature, is divided (beginning of 1920) into 3 high court districts and 214 district courts divisions, of which 91 are urban districts and 123 country districts.

In town these district courts (or courts of first instance) are held by the burgomaster and his assessors ; in the country by a judge and 12 jurors — peasant proprietors — the judge alone deciding, Unless the jurors unanimously differ from him, when their decision prevails. In Sweden trial by jury only exists for affairs of the press.

Pauperism.

According to the Poor-law ordinances issued in 1918 the communes arc bound to assist children under 16 years of age, if their circumstances require it, and all who from age, disease, or infirmity (physical or mental) are unable to support themselves. Each commune and each town (borough) constitutes a poor district, and in each is a board of public assistance. In 1918 these districts possessed workhouses and similar establishments to the number of 1,990, capable of lodging 65,035 people. There were besides 1,693 smaller cottages for the poor, assigned as dwellings for 6,161 paupers.

The total of those in receipt of relief was in 1918 256,441, of which 140,973 belonged to country paiishes and 115,468 to towns. Recipients of relief amounted relatively to the mean population to 3 - 39 per cent, in the country, 6*96 in towns, nud 4*41 on the average for the whole kingdom.

Finance.

Revenue and Expenditure for six years are shown as follows i —

Vear.

Revenue

Expeii'Iitiu.

Year

1019

1H20 1

v.m i

Revenue

Expenditure

191G 1017

iois

£

28,90(i,. r >72 54,886,89(5

ins, 194,034

28,919,064

980 04,730 617

71,920.310 61,176,104

.'■0,024,208

£ 51,178,104 50,024,20:)
 * 'V<'J2,777

1 Estit

nates.