IN THE BRUSSELS MUSEUM
“A COUNTRY FAIR,” By David Teniers the Younger
BELGIUM
Peasant Life
FOUR
Belgian customs, habits and amusements are strongly rooted in the soil. Half the population of the country maintains life by tilling the land. The nation’s prosperity, greatly affected by the discovery and operation of prolific mines, is nevertheless due in large part to the activity of peasant proprietors—owners of a few acres that are usually cultivated with the help of all the family. Grains, grape vines, sugar beets and vegetables, dairy cows and huge Belgian horses are the chief products of the fields. The amount of productive land in the kingdom is about four-fifths of the entire area.
No one that has ever looked over the hedge of a Belgian pasture will ever forget the sight of black and white cows as large as prize bulls in other countries, and of awkwardly cavorting colts, taller and much heavier about the joints than ordinary American farm horses. On the cobbled roads of Belgium one meets these splendid horses, moving ponderously, embraced by the shafts of capacious two-wheeled carts. Equally picturesque are the dogs of burden, hitched single, or in teams of two or three, drawing wagon-loads of milk, bread or fuel. Not infrequently, one or more members of the owner’s family are included in the load the dogs must pull. I once counted a jovial group of seven persons seated on meal-bags in a cart drawn by a panting pair of mastiffs. At country cross-roads the sign is frequently displayed: “Treat the animals with kindness”; but violations of the laws of humanity are so common as to excite little comment among the blunt-mannered country-folk of Belgium.
Before low-roofed houses bordering Flemish roads, the pilgrim discovers rows of lace-makers, comprising the feminine occupants of buff-colored cottages. Often there are children six or seven years of age perched on the straight-backed chairs. Their tousled heads barely reach above the broad “pillow” on which they and their sisters ceaselessly weave the spindles from dawn to twilight. The pay of a lace-worker averages a franc a day, or twenty cents for eight to ten hours of skilled labor. The lace made in these peasant homes is contracted for by buyers from Brussels or Bruges, who supply the thread. An expert worker, who has perhaps been trained in a convent school and is familiar with the delicate patterns of Princess, Cluny, Mechlin, Valenciennes, and Brussels lace, rarely receives more than fifty cents a day.