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

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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