‘Wij leven vrij, vij leven blij
Op Neerlands dierbren grond;
Ontworsteld aan de slavernij,
Zijn wij door eendragt groot en vrij;
Hier duldt de grond geen dwinglandij
Waar vrijheld eeuwen stond.’
Roughly translated, this is what the above means:
‘We live blithe, we live free,
On Netherland’s dear shore;
Delivered from slavery,
We are through concord free and great;
The land suffers no tyranny
Where freedom has subsisted for ages.’
And your Dutchman does as he jolly well likes wherever he goes, and he doesn’t care a Rotter, an Amster, or a Schie for anybody.
The Hague! The largest village in the world, the residence of the Court of Holland. It looks quiet as we steam into the station, but the omnibus is soon filled. I arrive at the hotel I have chosen. The landlord bows to the ground; my portmanteau is taken in, and then I am offered a table in the reading-room to sleep upon. ‘No!’ I exclaim, ‘I require a bedroom.’ The landlord is desolated; but there is not a bedroom in the hotel. I will go to another. The landlord is desolated again; but all the hotels are full. Do I not know that the great Medical Congress commences to-day, that the town is crammed, and that rooms have been bespoken a month beforehand? I accept the Congress and the situation, and I pass the night on a sofa in the reading-room surrounded by the principal journals of the world.
Before I retired to rest, pillowing my head upon L’Étoile Belge and using as sheets and blanket and counterpane the Times, the New York Herald, the Neue Freie Presse, the Gil Bias, and the Kolnische Zeitung, I took a stroll through the town. You might have walked on the people’s heads, as the saying is, though it seems to me the people might always urge very reasonable objections to your doing so. I didn’t go very far, because I hate crowds, and because to-morrow I am going to do the Hague ‘thoroughly’ in six hours and a half. But I got as far as a very nice square, covered with trees, very Dutch and very pretty. ‘I will sit down on this nice seat,’ I said to myself, ‘and revel in being so far away from the ordinary routine of English life.’ At that moment a man came up, and thrust a bill into my hand, and on it I read: ‘Heden Avona, Grand Café Chantant. Voor het eerst optreden van de beroemden Mis Maud Haigh en Ada Blanche, het grootste succes van de London Musicall.’
I have made up my mind to go to Scheveningen, the Dutch Brighton, and loll by the sea and watch the Mynheers and their good vrows bathe, and young Holland build castles on the sand. I get as far as the starting-place of the steam tramway, when a huge flaring bill dazzles me, half blinds me, and brings me to attention sharper than the voice of my officer ever did when I was in the rifle-corps. (That was years ago, when I was a good citizen and wanted to defend my country. My uniform was pepper-and-salt cloth, with scarlet facings, and I am told that I looked very well in it when I had it all on; but that I generally managed to go about with a collar, or a cap, or a pair of boots, or something that was not in keeping with a strictly military get-up. I remember once going out in a hurry with my uniform on, and in a fit of absence of mind putting on a tall chimneypot hat. I met the Duke of Cambridge at the corner of the street, and I shall never forget his face as long as I live. But this is a digression.)
The bill which brought me up to attention so smartly informs me in huge letters that ‘Donderdag 21 Augustus,’ at ‘Zeebad Scheveningen,’ there will be a ‘Groot Zomer-Feest.’ No wonder I start. This very day that I have made up my mind to escape the Congress at the Hague, it is the great summer fête of the season at Scheveningen.
I had a delightful week in Holland. Once again I explored the beauties of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Scheveningen, and the Hague, and my great regret was that I had not time to accept an invitation given me to visit the pauper colonies of Frederiksoord, Wilhelminaoord, and Wilhelmsoord, where the Dutch have made a most successful attempt to solve one of the great questions of the day. There is very little mendicancy in Holland, and pauperism is dealt with in a rational manner. At these colonies each adult, if able-bodied and willing to work, is provided with a few acres of land, a cow, a pig, and a few sheep, and the majority of the pauper colonists are made (after the first outlay) self-supporting for the rest of their days. There is strict discipline, of course, and the places are never allowed to be tempting homes for the vagabond. At Veenhuisen there are also colonies which are more penal in their character. These are for the idle and disorderly and for beggars.
I wonder that the pauper colonies of Holland and the Dutch system of dealing with vagrancy have not attracted more attention, seeing how burning is the question in this country, ‘What shall we do with our poor?’ The subject is well worth study, and an English delegate or two sent to the pauper colonies might return with some valuable information.