Kjoebenhavn, Dannmark,

(Copenhagen, Denmark), August 28, 1902.

The Copenhagener declares that his beloved “Kjoebenhavn” is not really an ancient city, although he admits it has been in active business since the middle of the tenth century, nearly one thousand years.

My Danish friends assert that it is my “Yankee eye,” which is so new, and prove the modernity of their town by telling me how many times it has been bombarded, how often sacked and razed, how frequently burned up; and yet, despite their facts, I still make bold to say the city bears the markings of an ancient town.

Long, long ago, even before the time of King Gorm the Old, here were markets by the water’s side, where the fisherman brought his catch, the peasant fetched his eggs and milk and cheese and what the soil might yield, where the itinerant merchant came to show and trade his wares. These handy markets by the sea were at first moved constantly about; by and by they came to be held, year after year, in the self-same spot; the temporary clustered settlement became a lasting town. As the centuries rolled on these market hamlets expanded into a single commercial rendezvous for all the northern world. Thus Copenhagen won her name (Kopman-haven—merchant port) and grew until her commerce made her the heir to the trade and traffic of the Hanseatic League, and she was recognized as supreme mistress of the commerce of the North by London and Bremen, Brussels and Bordeaux, as well as by the merchant fleets of Venice and the Levant.

Those were the days when her Kings and hardy seamen would as lief drink and fight and die as eat and live; their very recklessness made them masters of the North; they even annexed the mighty Norseman, and made Norway a Danish Province; they hammered and held in check their doughty cousins, the Swedes; they brought beneath their sway the Provinces of Skaania, of Halland and of Bleking, the southern portion of what is now known as Sweden; they dominated the cities along the shores of the North and Baltic Seas.

Copenhagen became, in fact as well as in name, the veritable capital of the North. In politics and in intrigue she played the master hand. She gathered to herself the arts and the sciences, the fashion and the elegance, of the North; and to-day, although warlike pride and power have fallen from her, although trade and commerce have lessened in her midst, yet the arts and the sciences, the culture and the elegance are still her own, and the fine old city claims to be as markedly as of yore the intellectual center of the Scandinavian race.

Copenhagen is a flat-lying city; it has no hills in it, while there are many canals and watery lanes which wind through it and lead to the sea, or as the Danes would say the Sund (Sound),—that narrow strait which links the Baltic to the Kattegat, where Denmark and Sweden appear once to have split apart.

The buildings are generally of brick, sometimes of stone, never of wood; they are large and substantial, often four and five stories high, with gabled roofs, sharp and steep, covered with tiles.

In the older parts of the city, the streets are narrow, and twist and turn and change their names even more often than the Rues of Paris. In the newer section, toward the north and northwest, there are long straight boulevards and straight cross streets, and the inevitable air of modern monotony.

The feeling and impression which stole over me the first morning I strolled about the city became almost one of sadness. The wistful, pensive faces of the people; their unobtrusive politeness; the inconsequential traffic of drays and carts along the quiet streets; canals and quays half empty where there should have been big packs of boats; absence everywhere of bustle and ado,—all these were almost pathetic. It might have been a Puritan Sabbath, so silent stood the big stone docks and piers among the lapping waters. There was none of[Pg 17]
[Pg 18] the ponderous movement of London, none of the liveliness of Paris, nor the busy-ness of Hamburg, of Bremen, of Amsterdam, of Rotterdam and Antwerp, although once Copenhagen was peer of any one. The bales of goods, the tons of merchandise which once filled her lofts and cellars are no longer there. The commerce which once made the city rich and gave her power has ebbed away. She is far fallen into commercial and industrial decay.

The causes which have wrought this collapse of the once great city are, perhaps, difficult to analyze. At least, those Danes with whom I have talked upon the matter are not at all agreed. Nor are they united upon the solution of the problem of restoring the city to the proud place she once held as metropolis of the northern world.

Some tell me that after the demise of the present King, and the passing of Sweden’s ruler to the Halls of Valhalla, then will it be possible for the Scandinavian peoples to come together in one permanent federation, or federal pact, where the Norwegian-Democratic spirit shall instil new energy into the now moribund political body of the sister states, and that then Copenhagen will be the natural capital of this free and potent Scandinavian state, and then will come to her the splendor and dignity justly her due.

Others declare, and declare with a flash of terror in their eyes, that the only hope for Copenhagen, the only hope for the pitiful remnant of the once proud Kingdom of Denmark, is to be wholly devoured by the Hohenzollern Ogre, to be by him chewed fine, gulped down, digested and assimilated as part of the flesh and blood of the waxing German Empire. Then will Copenhagen become the chief seaport of the German Hinterlands to the south, then will the importance of Bremen and Hamburg and Kiel be expanded into the new vigor that will have come to Copenhagen. They point to the inevitableness of this destiny as evidenced by the subtle, silent, incessant encroachment of the German tongue among the people of the city as well as throughout the land, and by the continuous invasion and settlement of the city and country by men and women of German breed. They say the Imperial monster grips them in a clutch whence there is no escape.

Whatever the future may have in store for stricken Denmark and Copenhagen, it is clear enough to the apprehension of the friendly stranger that the noble city is ailing and benumbed. She stagnates, and only revolution and rebirth into a greater Scandinavian state, or Germanic conquest and absorption, will restore her to her former place. It is natural for an American to hope for Denmark and her people a rehabilitation through the uplifting influence of a Scandinavian Republic.

There are fine shops in Copenhagen; behind the unpretentious fronts along the Oestergade, the Amagertorv, the Vimmelskaft and Nygade and neighboring streets is stored great wealth of fabrics and of merchandise. Here we saw the notably handsome pottery and artistic porcelain ware for which Copenhagen is already famous beyond the sea; and H and her mother have delightedly bought several charming pieces of the latter and ordered them sent forward to New York. They have also quite lost their hearts, and certainly their kroners, over the exquisite gold and silver and enamel work manufactured here, while they declare the laces and drawn work—particularly what is called Hedebo—excels anything of the kind they have discovered in London. The Dane is a poet, a dreamer, an artist; he is also a patient artisan, and what he produces ranks among the world’s best work.

Passing along the narrow sidewalks you would never suspect what is stored behind the plain exteriors, for the Dane has not yet learned the art of window display, nor has he acquired the skill of so showing his goods that the buyer is caught at a single glance. If you would purchase, you must have already determined what you want, and then, upon asking for it, will be given liberal choice.

The shops are mostly small, each seller dealing in a single ware. Only one Dane, a wide-awake newcomer from Chicago, has dared to introduce the complex methods of “department” trade. He has opened an immense establishment called the Magazin du Nord, where thus far is done a rushing business. But the conservative merchants of Copenhagen have not yet become so well assured of the success of this innovation that they are willing to follow the example set.

In company with the ladies I have been out all the afternoon along these narrow streets—streets where the narrow sidewalks are altogether insufficient to accommodate the passing crowds, which consequently fill up the middle of the way—and we find the Frus and Froekens of Copenhagen apparently as much devoted to what is called “shopping” as our own fair dames at home. Buxom and yellow-haired and rosy-cheeked, they throng the streets each afternoon. They are comely to look upon, and carry themselves with more graceful carriage than do the women of England. They walk deliberately, with none of the nervous scurry of their transatlantic sisters. Indeed, it is hinted to me, they have not come out so much to buy as to meet some friend or neighbor, and exchange a bit of news or gossip in one of the numerous and cozy cafes where is sold conditterie:—candies and chocolates and coffee and little cakes.

Next to conditterie, the Copenhagener is fondest of his books and the town abounds in bookshops, big and little. Every Dane reads and writes his native tongue, and among the educated, English and French and German are generally understood. In the book stores I visited I was always addressed in English, and found French, German and English and even American books upon the shelves; and more newspapers and magazines are published in Copenhagen, a Danish friend declares, than in any other city in Europe of its size. The Danes have, too, a widely established system of free circulating libraries and book clubs, which extend throughout the countryside of Zealand and Funen and Jutland, as well as in the towns, while Copenhagen is supplied also from the extensive collections of the University and Royal Libraries.

The public schools and the University we did not see, for the season was the vacation interval, and the teachers, professors and students were all dispersed. But the schools and University of Copenhagen are modernly equipped. The Dane is intelligent above all else, and he has always paid great heed to the adequate education of his race. Indeed, Copenhagen was the first city in Europe to establish real public schools, opening them in every parish more than three hundred years ago.

There are many Torvs about the city, market-places where all sorts of things have once been sold, but which are now become wide-open public squares. The old word Torv has already lost its ancient meaning, even as has the word Circus, which in London first sounds so strange to American ears. But while the Gammelstorv, the Nytorv, the Kongen’s Nytorv and many others are now degenerated into these mere open breathing spaces between the big buildings of the town, there are yet Torvs where fish, and flowers, meats and vegetables, and things else are offered for sale. The most attractive of them all to me were those where are sold the flowers and the fish.

In the Amagertorv were heaps of pale and puny roses, and diminutive asters and chrysanthemums, along with splendid pansies—“stepmother flowers,” as the Danes call them—and luxuriant piles of mignonette, and big baskets of pinks and phloxes; where rosy-cheeked women, in starched white caps, smilingly urged me to buy, and one Froeken with a wealth of yellow hair and cobalt-blue eyes, pinned on my coat a monstrous pansy for boutonniÈre.

Among the fishwives of the Gammel Strand there was always lively stir, for their fisk must early find a buyer, and by midday they themselves must be back to their nets and boats. These Danish fishwives, moreover, have a burden of responsibility quite unknown to their English, German, Dutch and French sisters. Not merely must they sell the fish which the men turn over to their keeping, but they must also preserve it hearty and alive, else the dainty Danish housewife will not buy. The fish are kept in large tubs and tanks filled with fresh sea water, where they swim about as keen and lively as they might do in the sea. The buyer scrutinizes the contents of these tubs with a fine and practiced eye; she picks out the fish which swims and splashes to her mind; has it lifted out alive, and carries it home in a bucket of water which she has brought to the market for that purpose. A fish which is dead, a fish which has died of strangulation in the air, is looked upon with horror and rejected as unfit for food by all right-acting Danish stomachs. No dead fish, preserved from becoming stale through the use of chemicals, ever enters a Danish kitchen. Is it any wonder then, that the buxom red-cheeked women and sturdy men of these seafaring lands prefer a square meal of sweet fresh fish to any other! Sauntering along the Strand I espied the cod and mackerel and herring under names I did not know, and everywhere foremost among them all the now familiar roed spoette, the Danish epicure’s delight.

The streets of London are choked with moving vehicles, or those drawn up in line awaiting fares. In Copenhagen one is struck at once by the absence of the equipages of the rich, the very limited number of cabs anywhere about, as well as the small number of heavy drays, even upon the wholesale business streets. One might almost say that the streets would seem deserted if it were not for the pigeons and the dogs. There must be many dove-cotes in Copenhagen and the birds certainly have hosts of friends. But the dog, the unabashed and capricious dog, is the real king of Denmark’s capital. After seeing him in Holland and in France, where his dogship is a faithful co-worker with man, toiling all the long day and longer year to eke out the income of his master, one almost envies the lot of the dogs of Copenhagen. These beasts abound throughout the city; neither tag nor muzzle adorns them, nor do owners seemingly claim them, but from puppyhood to gaunt old age they lead a boisterous and vagabond life, to the terror of small children and their nurses, and the well-gowned women who may chance to cross their trail. Whether they survive through performing the office of scavenger, as do the dogs of Constantinople, I have never been informed, but whatever the cause, the curs of Copenhagen take as full possession of that town as do the tame vultures of Vera Cruz.

We visited, of course, the many objects of interest the tourist is expected to see; we studied the splendid collection of the masterpieces of Thorvaldsen, housed in the stately building where also is set his tomb; we looked at the collection of ethnological relics, one of the most notable in the world; we lingered in the old castle of Charlottenborg, and the new art galleries where are gathered many of the master paintings of which the Danish capital is so proud; we admired the great round tower, up the spiral causeway of which a squadron of dragoons may ride to the very top, and Peter the Great ascended on horseback; we duly marveled at the much bepraised Fredriks Kirke, a marble edifice, smothered beneath a ponderous and ornate dome; and H and I spent a delightful hour in the noble Vor Frue Kirke, where her grandmother was wedded some sixty years ago; the banks and the Bourse, the imposing new Hotel de Ville—the finest modern building in Denmark—the Legislative Palace, Christiansborg and Rosenborg and Amalienborg and Fredriksberg. We saw what of them the public is allowed to see; we also drove and strolled upon the fine wide Lange Linie Boulevard along the water side, shaded by ancient and umbrageous lindens, whence may be viewed the inner and outer harbors and Free Port and the spacious, new and half empty docks, and much of the shipping, and where of a pleasant afternoon the fashion and beauty of the city are wont to ride and drive. We joined in with the multitude upon the long, straight Fredriksberggade, where the life and movement of the city may be watched and studied, even as upon New Orleans’ Canal Street and New York’s Broadway; and we did all else that well instructed Americans are taught to do. But after all, these are the things that Baedeker and the guide books tell about. To me it is ever of higher interest to learn from the people themselves by word and touch what my own senses aid me to see and hear, and so it was only when I met some of my wife’s Danish kin, and a broad and burly Berserker clasped me in his arms and implanted a smacking kiss upon either cheek, ere I knew him to be of her relations,—that I felt my acquaintance begun with the most polished and elegant branch of the Scandinavian race.

Other parts of nights and days we spent with friends in the lovely Tivoli gardens, where all the Copenhagen world, high and low, rich and poor alike, are wont to meet in simple and democratic assemblage, equally bent upon having a good time. “Have you seen Tivoli?” is ever almost the first question a Copenhagener will put. There we watched the famous pantomime in the little open booth beneath the stars, a sort of Punch and Judy show; there we entered the great music hall where the Royal band plays, and the crowded audiences of music-loving Danes always applaud; there we drank the Danish beer which is admitted to be the best on earth—so a Danish neighbor whispered in my ear. Tivoli is the Copenhagener’s elysium. When he is blue he gets himself to Tivoli; when he feels gay he travels to Tivoli; alone or in company he goes to Tivoli, and he goes there as often as time will permit, which is usually every night.

A most difficult problem for Copenhagen has been that of draining and sewering the city. It lies so low, almost at the dead level of the sea, and the tides of these Baltic waters are so insignificant—ten to twelve inches only—that for many centuries Copenhagen has been a most unhealthy city, infected by cesspools, tainted by blind drains, and defiled by accumulated poisons, until its death rate was higher than that of any other city in Europe. But at last the problem is solved. Forced water and giant suction pumps wash and drain out the elaborate system of pipes, and spill the death-laden wastage at a distant point into the sea, and with this transformation Copenhagen has become a measurably healthy city.

Perhaps it is this century-long fight with death, plague and epidemic knocking continually at her doors, which has endowed Copenhagen with so many fine hospitals and public charities for the care of the sick,—few cities in Europe are so elaborately provided. Hand in hand with the hospitals are also institutions for caring for the destitute and very poor. Denmark has never followed England’s pauper-creating system, but the beggar on the street is promptly put in jail, while the deserving poor is given a kindly and helping hand.

One of the most charming spectacles of the city is its extensive public gardens, where the ancient defenses are converted into parks, and the moats are transformed into ponds and little lakes where swans and geese are kept, and boys sail toy boats. The landward side of the city is thus almost encircled with these pleasure grounds. One morning we were crossing one of these gardens, the lovely Oersteds Park, when I caught a pretty picture with my kodak, a little two-years-old tot learning to make her first courtesy to a little boy of four or five. She dropped and ducked and bent her little body with all the grace of a Duchess of the Court.

Denmark is about the size of three-fifths of West Virginia, comprises fifteen thousand square miles and contains less than two millions of people,—about sixteen hundred thousand. She possesses no deposits of coal or iron, no forests of valuable timber; she has few manufactures. Her people are farmers making a pinched living off the land, raising lean crops and selling butter and cheese, or they are crowded—one-fourth of them,—into the city of Copenhagen, or they are gaining a hardy livelihood upon the sea. And yet this diminutive kingdom puts up $275,000 a year for the keeping of the King, and also provides him and his family, tax free, with palaces and castles, and estates whereon to fish and hunt and play.

To an American mind it is amazing that a competent people will accept and suffer burdens such as these.

In the great state of New York, with its seven millions of people, with wealth of coal and iron, with immense primeval forests, with cities whose commerce expands with a swiftness almost incredible, the Governor is paid $15,000 a year, and allowed a single mansion wherein to dwell. Massachusetts, Vermont and Michigan, and many other commonwealths, pay their Governors but $1,000 per year, without a mansion for their residence.

The mighty Republic of the United States itself, with a continent for domain, and eighty millions of people, pays its President $50,000 per year, and gives him the use of the White House for his home.

Therefore, do you wonder, as I stroll about this fine old city, and look into the unhopeful, wistful faces of its plainly clad, not over-rich nor over-busy people, that I begin to comprehend why Copenhagen holds the highest record for suicides of any city in the world, and why so many of her vigorous, and alert and capable, young men continually forsake their native land for the greater opportunities and freer political and industrial atmosphere of the United States?

The Dane always gets on if you give him half a chance. He is called the “Frenchman of the North.” Graceful and supple in his manners, with a mouthful of courtesies of speech, he is naturally a social diplomat. The blunt Norwegian calls him a fop. The martial Swede sneers at his want of fight. But the Dane has always held his own, and as a financier, a diplomat and man-of-the-world able to make the best out of the situation he may be in, he still gives proof of possessing his full share of the Scandinavian brain.