"Secondly--The proper and attaned age of Johannes Van Beeck ande Maria Varleth. "Thirdlie--Thee consente off the Fathure ande Mothure off the Dauter. "Forthly--The distance and remoutnes beetweene this and oure Faderland, together withe thee calamiters relacion betweene Holland and England. "Fifthly--Thee danegur in such case arisienge ffrom long retardacion, betweene these too younge persons beecominge publick blame being attachede to the fammelys onn either sidde. "Our Shurlogans ande wise Jurists doo saye korectly onn such mattus, that wee must nott commit any lesser sinns too avoyde grater ones; tharefore wee thinke (with due submission) thatt bye suteable marrage (the apostel inn his epistel to the Heebrues calls the bedd undefiled honurable) both thee lesser ande thee grater crimes are preevented. Tharefor thee Burgomasters and Shepens off the city of Niew Amsterdam doe judge thatt thee afforeseyde younge persons haveing mayde thare proper Ecklisiastical proclamations with the earlyst opportunitie, and that they folloe it upp with thee bonds of matrimonie immediatelie tharafter. "Done at the Stadt House inn Niew Amsterdam in Niew Netherlands this 19th Feberary, 1654. "ARENT VAN HATTAN, P. L. VANDUGRIST, PIETER WOLFERSON, MARTIN KRIGIER, WILH. BEECKMAN, JOSH. P. R. RUYTER, OLOFF STEVENSEN." The social life of the New Netherlands was in many respects characteristic of the hard conditions of life in any new country, but in many respects it was peculiarly different from that of New England. "The sharp and strong contrasts in social position," says Mr. Roosevelt,[21] "the great differences in moral and material well-being, and the variety in race, language, and religion, all combined to make a deep chasm between life in New Amsterdam and life in the cities of New England, with their orderly uniformity of condition and their theocratic democracy." In fact, democratic as the Dutch theory was, the actual condition of the Dutch colony was aristocratic in its characteristics. "The highest rank was composed of the great patroons, with their feudal privileges and vast landed estates; next in order came the well-to-do merchant burghers of the town, whose ships went to Europe and Africa, carrying in their holds now furs or rum, now ivory or slaves; then came the great bulk of the population,--thrifty souls of small means, who worked hard, and strove more or less successfully to live up to the law; while last of all came the shifting and intermingled strata of the evil and the weak,--the men of incurably immoral propensities, and the poor whose poverty was chronic."