A tour through Holland

by Sir John Carr

Through considerable interest I was enabled to see the Rasp-House, or prison for male and female culprits: it is a large quadrangular building; most of the cells and rooms look towards the yard, which is considerably below the level of the street. The food is wholesome and abundant, and the chambers are kept very neat. I saw in this place nothing objectionable but the period allowed to the prisoners for taking exercise, which is infinitely too short and infrequent, each person being allowed to walk in the yard only once in the week; the consequence is, that few of the prisoners looked healthy.

Holland is justly celebrated for its public charities. In Rotterdam, before the last war, there were many benevolent institutions, some of which have inevitably languished, and others expired, in consequence of the political convulsions of the country and the usually impoverishing effects of long hostility.

In the streets I was surprised to see the horses shod in the shameful and clumsy manner they are: the shoe is behind elevated to a considerable height, so that the poor animal must suffer from the position into which he is always forced, resembling that of a lady in a high-heeled pair of shoes of the last century.

At my hotel I was much gratified by the whimsical appearance of a meeting called the Society of Variety and Unity, which was held there: about eighty Dutchmen of the middling classes of life were assembled in one of the rooms, to discuss philosophical, but more particularly religious questions: when I entered the room, one of their members was addressing the body upon the subject of death, as I was informed. His eloquence appeared to be as sluggish as the canal opposite; the motto of the fraternity was well illustrated by what appeared; the only variety I saw was in their pipes, and their unity was effected by the fumes of their tobacco, which seemed to blend them in one common mass of smoke.

I had not been two days in Holland without witnessing the abominable custom of introducing a spitting pot upon the table after dinner, into which, like the Kava bowl used amongst the natives of the South-sea islands, each person present who smokes, and that generally comprehends all who are present, discharges his saliva, which delicate depositary is handed round as regularly as the bottle. This custom is comparable in point of delicacy with that of washing the mouth and cleaning the teeth with a napkin after dinner, as in England, or picking the latter with a fork, as in France.

The Dutch are proverbial for smoking. The moment I entered any coffee-house, pipes and tobacco were introduced, as if the waiters were in dread of my imbibing some pestilent disease, without this sort of fumigation, and expressed uncommon surprise, when they remarked that I declined using them. The Dutch will insist upon it that smoking is not only as necessary to preserve their constitutions, as paint is to protect the exterior of their houses from the effects of their moist climate, but that the vapour invigorates the mind, which mounted like an aerial spirit upon a cloud, pours forth treasures of reflection with a brilliancy little short of inspiration.

The Dutch go to an astonishing expense in their pipes, which assume an endless variety of shapes, and are decorated sometimes with the most coxcombical figures painted upon the head or cup of it, according to the taste of its possessor.

Many of the opulent Hollanders use a pipe, the head of which is made of a clay which is very rare, and found only in Turkey, of so beautiful a colour, that is called the Meerschaum, or froth of the sea; for this piece of luxury the value of eight and even ten guineas is frequently paid.

The lower orders of society, and many of the higher, carry in their pockets their pipe, a pricker to clear the tube, a piece of tinder made in Germany from the large mushrooms growing on old trees, resembling spunge, a small steel and flint to kindle the fire with, and a box frequently capacious enough to contain a pound of tobacco.

It is curious to observe how naturally a pipe depends from a Dutchman’s mouth, and with what perfect facility he smokes without the assistance of either hand: he literally appears to have been formed by nature to breathe through this tube, with which he rides on horseback, drives in a carriage, and even dances. I have seen little boys take this instrument and puff away with an apparently instinctive predilection for the transatlantic weed. Smoking is a Dutchman’s panacea, he thinks it good in all cases, whether of consumptions, or plethora, nervous debility, or fiery fever: as a masticatory, tobacco is but little used even by the fishermen, sailors and boors; and I was surprised to find, that in the social shape of snuff, it seemed to have not many admirers.