Not far from where the lofty perpendicular Gothic windows of the church of St. Pancras overlook the square in which the Burgomaster extemporized with such eloquence at the time of the siege, a shipload of gunpowder exploded in 1807. After removing the débris of the buildings which it razed, the Leydeners planted the site as a public park and erected a statue of the valiant Van der Werf in the center of it. Backed by two or three handsome new buildings belonging to the university and facing a wide, clear canal, this Van der Werf Park vies with the Botanical Gardens behind the old university building, as peaceful a spot in which to spend a moonlit evening pondering over the history of the old place as may be found in Leyden; while from the Morsch Gate, a well preserved remnant of earlier fortifications, many temptingly shaded walks twist and twine through the immediate neighborhood. In Leyden, and not in Amsterdam or Rotterdam, as one might suppose, I came across a beggar for the first time in Holland, although technically, he came across me. The atmosphere of book learning was probably what launched him on his career, for he certainly seemed able-bodied enough to make a more honest living by the sweat of his brow; but the people of Leyden are not given much to fluent perspiration. And it might be here mentioned that one of the reliefs of travel in Holland, compared with Italy, for example, is its dearth of mendicants and beggars. Cripples and the poverty stricken are to be found in Holland as in any other country, but, as a rule, they do not submit their complaints to the sympathies of the tourist. Wherever possible, one of Holland’s world famed charitable institutions gets hold of them and sends them from the congested city to the pauper colony in the country. Three such colonies, founded in 1817, are situated near the railway line from Meppel to Leeuwarden, while in the one city of Amsterdam there are more than a hundred benevolent institutions. The Society for the Public Welfare, or, in Dutch, _Maatschappij tot Nut van’t Algemeen_, with headquarters in Amsterdam, was founded in 1784 and has made its influence felt throughout the entire kingdom. Katwyk and Noordwyk, three miles apart, the particular seashore resorts that cater especially to the people of Leyden and Haarlem, are both connected by steam tram with Leyden. Both are insignificant and expensive, and neither is so attractive as Domburg nor so gay as Scheveningen. Their wide beaches of fine sand would seem to us their only assets. But if you would have further evidence of the Dutch mastery of the element of water, take the tram to Katwyk aan Zee and walk up the beach a half mile or more to where they have harnessed the mouth of the old Rhine and curbed its outlet to suit their convenience.