Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1857-08-15
THE PAUPER COLONIES OF HOLLAND.
letter from VIM. C. Bryant.1

HEIDELBERG, July III o..
have made, with my family, the tour of Bel
GUM and Holland, and coming down from Fries
land by enc Of the Hanoverian railways to the
Rhine, am resting for a few days in Heidelberg.
We are the more disposed TO suspend our some
what rapid journey here, on account of the heat
of the weather, which is very great, one hot day
succeeding another, with no interruption from
showers, the sky being as intensely dazzling as
our own.
While in the northern part Of Holland, | made
a visit to the pauper colonies of Fredericksoord
and WillemsOofd, in the province of Oberwissel.
Here are tracts of sandy soil covered with heath
and shrubs, which. from the time they were first
formed from the bottom of the sea. till now, have
been abandoned to utter barrenness. The great
calamity Of Holland is pauperism, and somewhat
more than thirty years ago a benevolent society
was formed for the purpose OF settling the poor,
who had become a public charge, upon the waste
lands of the kingdom, with a view OF reducing
them to cultivation. They purchased a tract Of
land, mostly uncultivated, in the province OF
Ober-Yssel, where they made o beginning with
some Of the poor Of Amsterdam. who had been
thrown upon tho public charity. The colony thus
established has now increased to a considerable
5 community. yet it has made, l suppose, as much
impression upon the vast amount of pauperism
e in Holland, as the Colonization Society has
made upon the mass Of slavery in the United
e States.
We took a carriage at the ancient village OF
Steenwyck, and proceeded over a road so sandy
that we were obliged to travel very slowly. ana
rendered almost. impossible in some places by an
attempt to Macadamize it. We passed several
. comfortable looking tenements of the peasantry,
with little flowers gardens in front of them, and at
. length the coachman said, 'We are in the col
q ony."
could not see that the habitations of the pau.
pers seemed any lass comfortable than those Of
:. the district through which we had just passed.
= They were neat brick buildings, spacious enough
to contain. besides the rooms for the family, a
= stable for the COW, a place for the pig, and room
for the fuel. Near each was a little garden sur.
, rounded by a we'll ~pleached hawthorn hedge, and
outside of the hedge a ditch for the Hollander,
D from mere habit, always surrounds his domain
with a ditch, whether there is any occasion for il
!, or not. Back Of the gardens were fields CT rye
u and barley and other crops, and beyond, In places
j was a forest of shrubs and dwarf trees, looking
9 like the scrub oak plains on the worst parts OF Ions
=, Island and in places extensive wastes, the ike Of
9 which is never seen in our country, covered witt
} dark heath of purple tinge, and stretching out o.
d sight.
n The Director was not at home, and we were &c
: a companied over the village by one OF the book
"a keepers, but who spoke French 1.-THE only Language
y we understood in common) very imperfectly, anC
in a low tone of voice. He took us into several o
the dwellings. The first we entered was that of
widow from Gr0ningen, who had two or tire,
children able to work at the loom. 1t wasa mir
acle of neatness. The woman had established il
OIL the outer room her Summer kitchen, in whicl
e. were the pigpen and stable, and made it as cleal
Va as the incest parlor in our own country. w
% looked into the winter rOom-it was as nice as
new sideboard just from the cabinet makers. Sh
J had Il comfortable bed in a little closet, after tn
Dutch fashion. In a room above were the beds 0
the children, in kind of boxes on each side. Not
withstanding these appearances of comfort, til
woman took our courier aside and complained bill
terly of the hardness of her lot. She affirmed tina
she was half starved, and begged him to interced
l,-;tb +ba niractor in bar boholf When tho m ITO
u was afterwards mentioned to the book-keeper h.
y said that there was no end to the complaints O
these people, and that the more they got the NOR
they asked for. We went into another house, i
which was a good looking family Of both sexes
:" well-clad, and living in a manner which had ever
appearance of thrift. The rooms glittered wit
az the display of crockery and polished metal uten
sils, and were hung with cheap engrayings.
We were taken to the mandatory of the vi
i lage, a room full of ~looms-where coarse cottol
cloth is woven by the children between twelve an
~ eighteen years of age, for Dutch SOLITARY in tn
East Indies. The looms were clashing merily-
II the girls, in particular, jerked the shuttles back
n ward and forward with incredible swiftness
"These children" said the book-keeper, learn
D great deal for their families: in fact, those VIII
J come to our colony must either work or starve
if they are obstinately idle, they get nothing t.
eat.".
We were shown the school house-a building 0
m two spacious rooms, in which the children ar
y taught ACCORDING 10 the noeral system OF puDl
as education established in Holland. The school ha
at been suspended for a while, as the building wa
is undergoing repairs. Religious teachers are pro
lie vided for the colony-a Protestant, a Catholic, an
IS. a Jewish Rabbi. The colonists receive copper an
iron tokens for their labor, and this forms th
he money of the colony. With these they purchas
IN the necessaries for which they have occasion
st. from the magazines Of the colony, where ever,
'er thing is sold but Intoxicating liquors, the sale
which is forbidden.
could obtain no exact enumeration of the prof
nd or loss of this enterprise. "These people," sal
ay the book.keeper, "cost the society a great dea
Ct They come from the cities unaccus.omed to til
he work we require of them, and often with familie
of very young children, who are of too tender a
es age to work. They must be s~ubsistod, and thei
subsistence is a heavy charge"