The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-05-13
CRAZY ON SCRUDBING. Holland Has a Continual Performance in
 Cleaning. ITS STREETS WASHED A Land Where the Pumps and the Besoms Never
 Get a Rest.
ITS STREETS WASHED

ASiAS III IlOildlll IS Olle eternal spring housecleaning. Dirt is discouraged in the very germ, and cleanliness is the patron saint of the country. Scrub ping brushes are exhausted by the mil lion, and water Is wasted by the seas- ful in the everlasting crusade against the unseen enemy. A writer from Utrecht, describing her experience for the New York Sun says:
 l am alone, for my husband is bus ting somewhere in Germany, but I do not scream, I do not feel the slight est alarm or resentment, for 1 have learned in three months residence in Holland that such a face is not likely to be that of burglar or a ruffian or a lunatic, but of window washer, whose occupation never ceases-not that he is engaged at the top of step ladder cleaning windows every minute of the day, but when the already im- peaceable panes have been soused and rubbed and polished there is something else for him to scrub, be it floors, door AActAAASSt AlAG IlOAl OL lIlG lOQoCt lllS sidewalk or the stones of the street.
 Scrubbing is incessant in Holland When this man falls down from sheer fatigue, another will take his place and scrub spots Whereon dust has had no time to gather since the last scrub ping.
 It is a mania for dustlessness that possesses the country, which is so damp in winter that dust cannot form, and a result is the daily realization of legendary Spotless Town. This is no fanciful flight of an irresponsible pen. 1t fills New Workers heart with envy and despair to see the way these peo- pie take care of their streets.
 At 3 o'clock every night twenty-four men assemble in front of the hotel, which is near the corner of the Vry- burg, each in preposterous wooden shoes and armed with a huge bosom of tough twigs with long handle They stand in line at the curb and talk and laugh uproariously like lot of grownup children just out of school
 Meantime an immense barrel on wheels drawn by horse rolls along the very middle of the street, pouring out a generous flood of water. Imme- diately behind it come two revolving brushes, also horse drawn, that con vert the dirt into fine mud and push 1t in general way toward the gut ters.
 Then comes the second water wagon, no mere overgrown barrel, but an im- mense tank, from which water spurts in compelling floods toward each curb and such floodsl The pioneer barrel made an American street sprinkler seem like toy, and the second water wagon equally outdoes the first in the torrential volume of it's deluge
 All this is but preliminary, for when the second water wagon has passed the twenty-four men get busy, and the real work of cleaning the street begins. They form V, the apex just behind the water wagon, the arms extending to the curbs, and they operate their besoms with appalling vigor, scraping up every minute particle of dirt that escaped the revolving brushes and sweeping into the gutters
 With every stroke at least one in the brigade gets drenching from his neighbor's bosom, but they are indif- ferent to that--it's all in the nights work apparently--and as they hasten onward there is rhythmcal clump- clump' of the wooden shoes and a swish-swish of the besons positively inspiriting.
 Last of all comes the commander oi the brigade. He marches well within the arms of the " unprovided with a besom clapping his hands to establish the rhythm of the sweeping and en- hancing the hand claps with stentoriar shouts of command that surely could be heard mile away.
 Thus he drives the wedge forward keeping the brigade up to it's work never letting it get so far behind the water wagon that the flood will have lost it's force to carry off the refuse for there Is no following scavengel wagon. The dirt, coming to the gut. ters while the flood is at it's height, is carried away and lost somewhere in g canal
 This is only one of several similar brigades that work all through the night until every street In the city ha! been flooded and scrubbed and Wher morning comes the highways and by ways are cleaner than a pebble strewr beach at low tide.
 This incessant cleaning in Holland gets on the nerves and becomes z nuisance. Think of walking apprecia. lively along one of those spick ant span sidewalks and suddenly having to hold up your skirts and wadt through running water, all because { man or a woman has begun to delug, the front of house from a hose at. tached to hydrant.
 Once past the flood, you may bt startled until you get used to it by al extraordinary biped healless and arm less, emerging backward from an opel door. It wears a skirt from which leg! protrude ending in wooden shoes, anG 1t sways in portentous rhythm as i advances or, if I may so put 1t, recedei toward you
 If you have the courage and curios ity to watch this strange creature, resolves itself presently into a woman ' She bends over, feet wide apart unti her hands touch the floor. She is pro vided with a bowl of ammoniated wa ter and a piece of chamois skin.
 Having started at the farther end c the entry or hall, she is preceedin backward. pulling her bowl after he and scrubbing the floor. Arrived a the door, she scrubs the threshold ant continue to reeede across the side walk, scrubbing all the way and if passer happens to step on her clea section she never rises, but waits pa