CHAPTER V. LICENSED BROTHELS ... REMARKS UPON THEM ... DUTCH LITERARY MEETING DESCRIBED ... SPITTING POTS ... PIPES, DUTCH EXTRAVAGANT IN THEM ... SMOKING ... HISTORICAL ANECDOTE OF TOBACCO ... GENERAL TEMPERANCE OF THE DUTCH ... ARBITRARY POWER OF POLICE MASTERS ... TRAVELLING IN HOLLAND VERY CHEAP AND VERY AGREEABLE ... CANAL TO DELFT ... DUTCH SAWING MILLS ... ENGLISH CIRCULAR MASONRY MILLS ... DUTCH LANGUAGE ... SPECIMEN OF THE ENGLISH, DUTCH, AND GERMAN LANGUAGES. It is matter of surprise to the contemplative traveller to observe in a country apparently so mechanically moral and regular as Holland, the glaring defects of the most loose and meretricious government: in the hearts of the finest cities are to be found brothels surpassing in iniquity all such seats of impurity in any other nation, in which the horrible novelty of the most savage oppression is united to a public, licensed, and authorised display of vice and profligacy. I mean the spill-houses, to one of which my laquais de place conducted me about ten o’clock at night, when those scenes of revelry open. In a street, in an inferior quarter of the town, the sound of fiddles and dancing announced the approach to one of these houses: presently my guide stopped before one of them, into the saloon of which he introduced me by pulling aside a curtain drawn before the door, near which, in a little raised orchestra, two fiddlers were scraping; upon benches at the other end of the room were seven or eight females, painted and dressed in all their finery, with large silver buckles, loose muslin robes, massy gilt ear-rings, and ornaments of the same metal round the head. Most of them looked very jaded. As soon as I entered, a bottle of wine and glasses, and pipes and tobacco, were put before me, for which I paid a florin, and which is considered as the premium of admission. These miserable wretches were all prostitutes and prisoners, confined to this haunt of vice, and never suffered to pass its threshold until enabled, out of the wages of prostitution, to redeem themselves. The way in which they are ensnared into this brothel-dungeon is worthy of notice. The keeper of it hears of some girl who is in debt, frequently occasioned by dressing beyond her means, to set off her person to advantage at some of the music-rooms or other public places; he approaches her, pities her, offers her money to discharge her debts, advances her more for immediate and future purposes; she becomes his debtor: in a short time he seizes upon her person, and bears her away to his bagnio, and receives the profligate produce of her disgrace and infamy; and this scene of compound enormity is tolerated by the government, and has so continued for many years, till time has hardened the cruel practice into a custom which has become inoffensive to the people.