[18] “She was in black down to her toes, with her hair concealed under a cambric border, laid close to the forehead: she was one of those kind of nuns, and please your honour, of which there are a good many in Flanders.” “By thy description Trim,” said my uncle Toby, “I dare say she was a young Beguine, of whom there are none to be found any where, except in the Spanish Netherlands, they differ from other nuns in this, that they can quit their cloisters, if they chose to marry—they visit, and take care of the sick by profession, but I had rather, for my own part, they did it out of good nature.”—Sterne.
[19] The 17th article of the Constitution Belge, contains the following pithy enactment as to national education. “L’Enseignement est libre, toute mesure préventive est interdite.”
[20] “Quelques mots sur l’état actuel de l’instruction primaire en Belgique, et sur la nécessité de l’améliorer.”
See also a clever paper by R. W. Rawson, Esq. in the Quarterly Journal of the Statistical Society of London, vol. 2, p. 385.
[21] The linen which we saw was of low quality, coarse and strong, and by no means cheap. It consisted of sheeting, for export to the Havannah, which, for five quarter’s wide, was sold at one shilling a yard.
[22] This latter quantity is found in the tables published by the Board of Trade, under the head of “Flax, Tow, or Codilla of Hemp and Tow.” The importation of “undressed hemp” is under another head, and amounts to 730,375 cwt.
[23] It is curious that this process which all concur in representing to be one requiring the utmost cleanliness and purity, should of all places be performed in Holland with an utter neglect of both. In an able document by Mr. Acton, in the Quarterly Journal of Agriculture for 1832, he gives the following account of the operation. “The mode of watering flax in Holland, and in the low lands of Belgium and France, is to put a dam across the canal, clean out the weeds and mud for a few yards next the dam, lay in three or four rows of sheaves of flax next the dam, and then covering these six inches deep with the rank herbage that grows in the canal, and the mud raked up from its bottom. A few more courses of sheaves are next placed in the same way as the first, and covered in the same way with weeds and mud, till the whole is put in steep. These fosses, and the mode of placing the flax in them, are as they ought to be, but the propriety of dragging up so much mud or slime from the bottom of the canals, to cover the sheaves, six inches deep, may well be doubted, it cannot fail to besmear the lint so much, as to render it so nasty, that it would require to be much rinsed and washed in the water to remove the mud. This not only creates labour, by no means the most agreeable, but must greatly injure the flax by ruffling it in the water, a thing that ought to be avoided.”—Vol. iv. p. 174.
[24] This important association has been for some years in operation, and amongst its functions has sent several commissioners into other countries to ascertain the relative value of their various processes. The result of these inquiries, they have condensed into a short manual for the use of the farmers and others engaged in the trade in Flanders; in order to confine it to whom it has been written and printed in Flemish. A copy of this valuable document translated into French, for which I am indebted to a particular source, I have placed in the appendix to these volumes. Knowing it as I do, to be the genuine and anxious suggestions of the best practical men in Belgium, it may be regarded as a faithful guide to their process, and would be well deserving of extensive circulation in the flax districts of Great Britain and Ireland.
[25] It consists, I believe, of about thirteen sail of small vessels.
[26] On the first out-break of the revolution, the people of Antwerp, strongly opposed to it, sent the following address to the King of Holland. “Sire, it is not without painful sensations that we have been apprised of the demand made to your Majesty, tending to obtain a separation of interests between the southern and northern provinces. The fear that our silence may be interpreted as an adhesion to this proposition, imposes upon us the duty of exposing to your Majesty, that the wish is in no way participated in by us. The experience of fifteen years has proved to us, in the most evident manner, that is to the free and mutual exchange of produce, that we are indebted for reciprocal prosperity. The advantages that navigation derives from the colonies, the increasing outlets that these same colonies constantly offer to the produce of our industry, are irrefragible proofs, that any separation would not only be fatal to this province, but to the commercial industry of all Belgium. Intimately persuaded of this great truth, we dare to make it known to your Majesty, with that confidence and respect inspired by a King, who desires the welfare of his people, and who will never labour but in the interest of its well understood prosperity.”—Antwerp, September 13th, 1830.