Dutch Life in Town and Country

Dutch Life in Town and Country

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Title: Dutch Life in Town and Country
Author: P. M. Hough
Release Date: September, 2005 [EBook #8823] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on August 13, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DUTCH LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY ***

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[Illustration: The Delft Gate at Rotterdam.]

Dutch Life in Town and Country
By
P. M. Hough, B.A.
With Thirty-Two Illustrations

Contents

I. National Characteristics II. Court and Society III. The Professional Classes IV. The Position of Women V. The Workman of the Towns VI. The Canals and Their Population VII. A Dutch Village VIII. The Peasant at Home IX. Rural Customs X. Kermis and St. Nicholas XI. National Amusements XII. Music and the Theatre XIII. Schools and School Life XIV. The Universities XV. Art and Letters XVI. The Dutch as Readers XVII. Political Life and Thought XVIII. The Administration of Justice XIX. Religious Life and Thought XX. The Army and Navy XXI. Holland Over Sea
Index

List of Illustrations

The Delft Gate at Rotterdam Types of Zeeland Women Zeeland Peasant--The Dark Type A Zeeland Woman--The Dark Type Dutch Fisher Girls A Bridal Pair Driving Home A Dutch Street Scene A Sea-Going Canal A Village in Dyke-Land A Canal in Dordrecht An Overyssel Farmhouse An Overyssel Farmhouse Approach to an Overyssel Farm Zeeland Costume Zeeland Costumes An Itinerant Linen-Weaver Farmhouse Interior, Showing the Linen-Press Type of an Overyssel Farmhouse A Farmhouse Interior, Showing the Door into the Stable Farmhouse Interior, the Open Fire on the Floor Palm Paschen--Begging for Eggs Rommel Pot A Hindeloopen Lady in National Costume Rural Costume--Cap with Ruche of Fur An Overyssel Peasant Woman Zeeland Children in State Kermis 'Hossen-Hossen--Hi-Ha!' St. Nicholas Going His Rounds on December 5th Skating to Church Parliament House at the Hague--View From the Great Lake Interior of Delftshaven Church (Where the Pilgrim Fathers Worshipped Before Leaving for New England) Utrect Cathedral

Dutch Life in Town and Country

Chapter I
National Characteristics

There is in human affairs a reason for everything we see, although not always reason in everything. It is the part of the historian to seek in the archives of a nation the reasons for the facts of common experience and observation, it is the part of the philosopher to moralize upon antecedent causes and present results. Neither of these positions is taken up by the author of this little book. He merely, as a rule, gives the picture of Dutch life now to be seen in the Netherlands, and in all things tries to be scrupulously fair to a people renowned for their kindness and courtesy to the stranger in their midst.
And this strikes one first about Holland--that everything, except the old Parish Churches, the Town Halls, the dykes and the trees, is in miniature. The cities are not populous, the houses are not large, the canals are not wide, and one can go from the most northern point in the country to the most southern, or from the extreme east to the extreme west, in a single day, and, if it be a summer's day, in _day-light_, while from the top of the tower of the Cathedral at Utrecht one can look over a large part of the land.
[Illustration: Types of Zeeland Women.]
As it is with the natural so it is with the political horizon. This latter embraces for the average Dutchman the people of a country whose interests seem to him bound up for the most part in the twelve thousand square miles of lowland pressed into a corner of Europe; for, extensive as the Dutch colonies are, they are not 'taken in' by the average Dutchman as are the colonies of some other nations. There are one or two towns, such as The Hague and Arnhem, where an Indo-Dutch Society may be found, consisting of retired colonial civil servants, who very often have married Indian women, and have either