Perhaps at this point it might be opportune to tell the story of old Herr van Klaes of this same town of Rotterdam, who consumed a five-ounce package of tobacco daily and died in action at the age of ninety-eight with his pipe actually in his mouth. In his will he expressed the wish that every smoker in the kingdom be invited to his funeral “by letter, circular, and advertisement,” and all who took advantage of the invitation should be presented with ten pounds of tobacco and two pipes, the name of van Klaes, his crest, and the date of his demise to be engraved upon the latter. Every poor man in the neighborhood who accompanied the bier was to receive a large package of smoking mixture on each anniversary of the death of his champion. The will stipulated further that all who wished to partake of its benefits must smoke “without interruption during the entire ceremony.” The body was to be placed in a coffin lined with the wood of his old cigar boxes, and at the foot should be placed a package of French tobacco and one of the Dutch blend. At his side in the coffin was to be laid his favorite pipe and a box of matches, “For,” he said, “one never knows what may happen.” And all persons in the funeral procession were requested to sprinkle the ashes of their pipes upon the bier as they passed it while taking their departure from the grounds.
It is said the funeral of Herr van Klaes at least enjoyed the distinction of being the largest seen in Rotterdam in many a day. It must have been a busy time for the aanspreker. Indeed, it must have taken the concentrated efforts of all the aansprekers in Holland to help advertise the funeral. But here a few lines as to the solution of the word “aanspreker.”
The Dutch aanspreker is he of the mourning robes whose duty it is to go about from house to house, wherever even the flimsiest ties, whether social or business, exist, and announce the saddening news of a death; or it is he of the more gaudy apparel who gives the gladsome tidings of a birth in the family—and the degree of his mournfulness or jocundity in appearance bespeaks the mournfulness or jocundity of his employers.
In earlier times the services of the aanspreker were augmented by those of the huilebalk, a kind of a professional mourner, who, in the case of a death, accompanied the aanspreker on his rounds and wept more or less fluently after the completion of each doleful message. His coat was long-tailed and his hat wide-brimmed and the extent of his sorrow in each case depended wholly upon the receipts for his services; the more money, the more tears. Both must have been depressing professions at best, but this manner of announcing the news constituted an essential factor of every funeral. The aanspreker is often seen to-day, but the huilebalk has wept himself out of existence, probably on account of a simple dearth of apprentices.
The patron saint, almost, of Rotterdam is Gherardt Gherardts, better known by the more poetic name of Erasmus Desiderius—meaning “beloved and long desired”—scholar, critic, philosopher, intellectual fly-by-night, born in Rotterdam in 1466. A bronze statue of him by Hendrik de Keyser decorates the Groote Markt of his birthplace. Known best by his immortal satire, “The Praise of Folly,” and for his being, in 1516, the first to be so bold as to amend the text of the Greek New Testament, Erasmus was undoubtedly the “intellectual dictator of his age.” He entered the order of the Brethren of the Common Life, first at ’S Hertogenbosch and later at Delft, and the year America was discovered saw him acting as secretary to the Bishop of Cambrai. He studied in Paris, in Orleans, in Oxford, in Rome, and then returned to England to accept a professorship at the University of Cambridge. He died in Basle in 1536.
Rotterdam cannot be said to be noted for its cleanliness; in fact, it crowds Amsterdam for first place as the dirtiest city in Holland. But still Rotterdam as well as Amsterdam has its beauty spots. Some of the residence streets in the newer part of the city are veritable gardens in themselves. The Parklaan, with the Park at one end and the Grooteveerhaven, the latter crowded with private motor boats and yachts that gleam in their innocence of dirt, at the other, is lined with beautiful homes. It and the Mauritsweg and the Eendragtsweg are tree studded and kept swept and sprinkled quite as thoroughly and as frequently as any of the streets in The Hague. The canal that borders these two latter streets is banked with lawns and crossed here and there by artistic rustic bridges, for in Rotterdam, as in the German municipalities, they pay more attention to the details of city beautification than do we in America. The community at large seems to take a personal interest in such affairs. Can you imagine the linemen for a telegraph company or an electric light corporation coming along the streets of a German city, exercising the right of eminent domain by ripping up the pavements of the property holders and digging holes big enough to bury a horse, in which to plant the unsightly wooden poles that seem to them, on account of their comparative cheapness, the only known method of carrying wires? The Germans wouldn’t stand it for a minute. They use steel wire carriers over there—a more businesslike looking trestle work in the shape of an elongated truncated pyramid, set slightly above the ground on a concrete foundation. And I noticed that these “trestle” telegraph poles in Rotterdam, when the conditions permitted, were planted in the center of a little bed of geraniums, while some even had vines climbing upon them.
The Dutch, too, are sticklers for coziness and they try to make their living quarters as habitable as possible. In the congested harbors of Rotterdam, where, sometimes, you can step from one side of the stream to the other upon the flat decks of the swarms of canal boats, it is doubtful if you will see an uncurtained cabin window, and pots of flowers will be displayed in most of them. The train shed of the Beurs railway station in the heart of the city has an outside cornice of flower boxes filled with pink geraniums. But then, you will remember about the Dutch locomotives—which accounts for much.
As you enter Rotterdam or Amsterdam on the railway you pass row after row of what we please to call tenement houses. Even these are not devoid of a cozy, homelike aspect that our tenements and even reasonably inexpensive apartment houses know not. Each apartment can boast of a balcony in the rear that is partitioned off from its neighbors. In many cases these balconies are shaded with awnings from the glare of the sun and decorated with flowerpots in profusion. This serves the city dweller in lieu of a garden, and here he eats his meals and spends his evenings after work. In the daytime the family use the balcony as an improvised sewing room. Many of the back yards of the smaller houses consist of a tree lined canal over which the family looks from the seclusion of a flower girdled, awning covered veranda.
The Dutch not only keep themselves cozy but they take a tender sort of interest in the well-being of their birds and dumb animals. True, they train their dogs to help their masters pull the milk carts or vegetable wagons, but the dogs look husky and well fed and seem to take pride in their accomplishment. A spare-ribbed stray canine prowling around the neighborhood is an unknown quantity in Holland.
In the center of some of Rotterdam’s canals which are barred to traffic and made, instead, to assist in the beautification of the city, you will see little wicker duck nests, like empty market baskets turned on their sides. They rest on piles driven into the bottom of the canal, and the entrance to each is approached from the water by means of a wooden incline about the size of a shingle. This is not only a convenience for the ducks but features as an artistic break in the monotony, I might say, of the canal.