The Press., 1904-11-23
DUTCH CHEESE MART
QUAINT ALkMAAR AND ITS ANCIENT
 WEIGH HOUSE SCALES.


 A Town lm Northern Holland Which
 Fors Over Two Hundred Years Haa
 Had the @Rights to Weigh" Every
 Cheese Made I'm the Realm.
 Though Eidam, on the Zuyder Zee
 gives it's name to those rose red spheres
 we know as Dutch cheeses," which
 are instinctively associated with in-
 digestion, yet it is Alkmaar, In north
 ern Holland, that conduces to the week
 ly importance of this edible of com
 merce, as any one who has ever stood
 in the quaint old market place upon
 Friday, and about the hour of noon,
 will have speedily come to understand.
 For the Dutch cheese producer, in-
 deed. "all roads, may be said to lead
 to AIkmaar. likewise all waterways.
 and there are many of them. Thither
 come the cheeses by rail. by cart and
 by boat; you stumble over them inside
 the station as you alight from the train; they dispute the right Of way be- tween the rows of narrow. many col ored and curiously gabled houses; they stand in solid stacks upon the landing stages-heaped up like cannon balls in readiness for an immediate lombard
 ment and, if 'twere not libelous to breathe aught sayoring of disrespect to a friendly country's national cOmesti- ble. as deadly, possibly, also to an un- accustomed stomach as their leaden prototypes. s 3s S
 But, be that as it may, the cheese market Is a rare good sight in quaint
 Alkmaar when the peasant proprietor and his yrouw come in to drive their bargain at the weigh hoouse with the
 wholesale agents from far and near, and every hostelry does it's own brisk
 trade with both parties. Across those
 rounded bridges peculiar to Holland come shoals of peasant folk in pic turesque attire. Who does not know by now the dress with it's glorious cap and golden .'corkscrew" ornaments, the pride of many a generation, making pretty faces doubly bewitehing and lending some subtle attraction to even the hardest featured dame we'll up in years? On they come-clatter. chatter. chatter, voluble with their guttural fiu- ency we somehow feel we ought to un- derstand because of its cOnfusingly familiar sound. but its very kinship to German sends us astray. and we listen and listen till the jargon about the weigh hoouse becomes a more hope less tumble of sounds than ever to our ears, and we content ourselves with turning our attention to the building itself It stands where its richly paint ed facade can be seen clearly reflected In the cool. smooth waters of the neigh boring canal. a dignified old pile, built in 1851, with an especial eye to the growing importance of Dutch cheeses, Alkmaar having in that year received it's right to weigh" from William of Orange. and thus every cheese chang ing hands from that date onward hay ing passed from the producer to the dealer across the Alkmaar scales. The present ones. by the way, which have hung in their place since 1892. were made in Amsterdam at cost of S58 guilders and. having conscientiously performed their duties without hitch ever since. certainly speak volumes for the workmanship of POO and odd years ago.
 Though the little town is thronged from earliest morn with orderly crowds of heavy HoIlanders. it is not until the musical chimes within the signified the hour of noon by breaking forth in melody. generally from some well known comic opera. that the ac- tual business Of the day begins. al- though. "unofficially." both parties to the coming transactions have probably already taken time by the fOrelock over a glass of hollands in some inn on the maarkt Now. however, the ware is carried within doors. the time honored ceremony Is gone through and the ticket stating the correct weight of each given. after which act tie money changes hands. It is a study in temperament, this weigh hoouse scene in the little Dutch town. No hurry skurry' mars the. calm of the place or disturbs the phleg- matic. pipe sucking individuals pri- marily interested in the transactions here going forward. The cheese alone ste1llS TlOlOuS dHu iuClIucu kO " nOicodAC with mind to roll hither and thither, possibly resulting from some ''subconscious' memory of cows. green meadows and buttercups and disinclination to coming bondage upon the prosaic shelves of some pro vision dealer.
 If so, we honor the last kicks" flu tile though they be, for accustomed hands soon bounce upon and gather lp the stock. of which each single cheese weighs from two to six kilOs, md they are swiftly carried out to make way for the next lot. And so on, Ill through the day. does the trade pro .eed until the last "Eidamer' has been disposed of, but the extent of the busi- ness done in so quiet and orderly a fashion on cheese market days" may 10 some extent be gauged from the 'act that no less than 5.00O.OO0 pounds weight of Eidam cheeses are computed o pass through the Alkmaar weigh loouse annually before proceeding to Amsterdam and Rotterdam. where ,ach is duly invested with it familiar ed coat. prior to more extended trav- .ls. by land and by sea. often into the leart of the unknown. travels, how ever. which almost invariably end within the interior of man.-PalI Mall Gazette