Punch (47.1864)

102

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI

[September 3, 1864.

A VIS'T TO MYNHEER VAN DUNK.

ear Punch,—As
a man of very
varied and exten-
sive information,
you doubtless are
aware that Her
Majesty Queen
Anne is dead, and
that our once
allies the Hutch
have taken Hol-
land. But there
are certain other
facts relating to
that country
which may very
likely not have
come within your
notice; and I
should not be sur-
prised if, in com-
mon with most
Englishmen, you
still labour under
numerous delu
sions as to Dutch-
land. I dare say
now you fancy
that, excepting
cheese, perhaps,
there is nothing

there worth looking at. A few pictures there may be, in the tea-board
style of art, and here and there a quaint costume, not as yet extinguished
by the milliners of Paris. Your notion of a Dutchman is taken very
probably from Knickerbocker’s History, and formed upon the model
of the famous Rip Van Winkel. You imagine him a man about as broad
as he is long, whose habit is to sit at home all day smoking a huge
meerschaum, and never opening his fat lips, excepting when his pipe or
his stomach may want filling. The sage Dutchmen, you have read,
when their city was attacked, sat smoking in mute council till the frag-
rant cloud they blew enveloped all their city, and thus hid it from the
enemy. Well, Dutchmen certainly do smoke, but they don’t smoke
meerschaums now, and but few clay pipes are visible. The modern
Rip Van Winkel would most likely go to sleep with a cigar between his
lips, for cigars are now in vogue with all smokers in Holland. Soldier,
sailor, tinker, tailor, gentleman, apothecary,* small boy, thief, every one
you see there is smoking a cigar. Weeds in Holland are as plentiful
as weeds now in the Thames, and if you have pulled from Oxford lately,
you can estimate their number without much fear of adding to it. A
row from Oxford down to Windsor is like rowing through a salad; and
if the drought should last much longer, I expect to hear that Croquet
has been played upon the river, and the regatta reach at Henley lias
been chosen for a cricket-match.

Put aside, then, if you please, your old Knickerbocker notions, and
learn that Dutchmen now, excepting that they mostly shave, are vastly
like to Englishmen. Tollite barbarum ! “ Away with the barber ! ” has
been our cry of late, but is not echoed yet by Dutchmen. A moustache
is here the rule, in Holland the exception; and, so far as I could see, a
beard is very seldom reared there. The Dutch are not more silent than
ourselves, and are scarcely greater smokers; and in many of their ways
—their love of home comforts, for instance, and their industry in busi-
ness—they show a strongly-marked resemblance to the English. They
eat roast beef, and they drink beer, and go to clubs to read the news-
paper, in a manner not much different from that of most Great Britons.
Their country is in fact a sort of foreign England, and any English
visitor soon finds himself at home there. On the whole, I think their
churches and their other public buildings quite as ugly as our own;
and though they pay a little more regard to picturesqueness in their
houses, these do not look a whit less likely than our own to yield a
comfortable dwelling-place. As a rule, their rooms seem far more lofty
than our own; and then front doors are so gigantic that they all seem
made for Brobdingnags. Not being a business man, 1 could not value,
as it merited, the vastness of their warehouses; but I delighted to
observe how beauty in their architecture blended with utility, and how
the decorated gable ends, on which such pains and paint had been care-
fully bestowed, were all furnished witli a hook to haul up—if not mer-
chandise-chairs, chests of drawers, and dinner tables.

Not lor the world would I throw doubt upon the dicta of our Bishops.
But the Bishop who informed us, in the jolliest of glees, that our friend

* When you write to your Dutch friends, you should spell this “ apotheek ” and
you may ask why the apotheeks always have a ghastly-carved head stuck outside
their shops, with the mouth gaping its widest, as though takinga big pill?

Mynheer Van Dunk “ drank brandy-and-water gaily,” and daily
quenched his thirst with half a gallon of that spirit, I fear can hardly
be relied on for correctness in Ins statement. If, however, it be true,
Mynheer Van Dunk must have been quite an exception to the rule
which Dutchmen practise in their drinking. Beer is their chief tipple,
and the few who call for spirits, take Schiedam, not brandy. If you go
into a Koffijhuis, you find that eight in ten, at least, are drinking beer,
while the other two most probably are sipping lemonade, or some mild
drink of that sort. I never saw a drunken man in my week’s visit;
and, indeed, the beer which is commonly consumed seems hardly to be
capable of producing drunkenness. Poor, thin, wishywashy stuff it is,
not better than our “ swipes,” and has but very little flavour excepting
what is nasty. I pity Dutchmen for them living so remote from Bass
and Alsopp, and for their distance from the nectar brewed by Char-
rington or Truman. I think a British Beer Exporting Company
should in charity be started for the benefit of Dutchmen, to enlighten
their poor minds by showing what good stuff from malt and hops can
be extracted. Care, however, must be taken that the barrels and the
bottles be not tampered with in transit, and then refilled with German
wishwash. Of all the tricks in trade I think this the most odious.
What torture can be greater than to get a bottle marked with the red
pyramid of Bass, and to find that it contains some continental nasti-
ness F I experienced this agony myself at Amster-hem ! (as the genteel
lady called it), and was charged a guilder for the disappointment. Of
course, big brewers cannot stoop to bottle their own beer; but they
might appoint their bottlers, and make them use stamped corks, and
then Englishmen abroad would not be duped as I was. Marked bottles
may, of course, be emptied and refilled with any vat-rinsings and cask-
dregs ; but marked corks, when once drawn, could not be used again,
and I would make it penal to imitate the stamp on them.

I have said that Holland often reminded me of England, but the beer
I tried to drink there certainly did little to refresh my recollection. At
the same hotel, however, where I was duped so Bass-ly, my native laud
was strongly brought into my memory. I arrived on Sunday evening,
as weary and as hungry as a long Dutch sermon, followed by a short
journey, could make me. “ Waiter! garpon ! Jan ! ” said I, in my
best Dutch, “I want some dinner, sharp now! Vat haben you to
giben me F ” I thought he looked a Dutchman, so I gave myself the
trouble to speak in his own language. But, beshrew me ! the knave
answered, “DinnersirF yessir. Whatwouldyoupleaseto’avesir ? ” just
as though I had arrived at any swell hotel in England. “Oh, well,” I
replied, a little disappointed at not having to talk Dutch, “ I want
something nice and foreign, m diner du pays, voyez-vous,” said I; for
when travelling abroad I never lose a chance of trotting out my Erench,
albeit that plain English may be vastly more intelligible. “Furriu-
dinner F Yessir. Bringyouabiledfowlsir, horwouldy’pleaseto’averoast-
beeff ” Boiled fowl or roast beef ! Wasn’t that a pretty dish to set
before an Englishman, whose main desire in travelling was to expel all
thoughts of England, and live a foreign life ! But I was much too
hungry to move any amendment of this wretched bill of fare, and so I
sat and vainly tried to think myself abroad the while I ate roast beef
off a dinner-plate marked “ Wedgwood,” served on an Irish table-cloth,
and carved with a Sheffield knife and fork.

I have another word or two to say about the Dutch, so I beg leave to
subscribe myself, yours, dear Runch, eternally (until the middle of
next week, say),

Vagabundus.

“BEES ABE HUMMING, I AM COMING.”

We think that a line has accidentally slipped out of the last letter from
the Bee-Master. He says that critics of the wasp kind are delighted
when they can discover a trumpery blemish in the works of Tennyson
or Longfellow. Has not the printer managed to omit the words that
should follow—something of this kind, “ or detect a careless lapsus in a
Lecture on Prophecy.” Eh, Dr. Bee-Master F Nevertheless your
letters are very good ones, and you may write as many more as the
Times likes to insert, though as Cowper says

“ We who make no honey, though we sting,

Critics, are sometimes apt to maul a thing.”

A Contribution to the next Burlesque.

(It may be introduced a propos of nothing, of course.)

East-Indian Foundlings have no safe retreat.

Like Captain Coram’s near Lamb’s Conduit Street;
Coram in India never watches o’er ’em.

For then he would be called an Indy Coram.

A BRUTAL DEMOCRACY.

Hitherto we have known of an Animal Kingdom only, but now that
the belligerent Yankees have sunk to the level of savage beasts, we are
forced to recognise also an Animal Bepublic.