The Dutch _aanspreker_ is he of the mourning robes whose duty it is to go about from house to house, wherever even the flimsiest ties, whether social or business, exist, and announce the saddening news of a death; or it is he of the more gaudy apparel who gives the gladsome tidings of a birth in the family--and the degree of his mournfulness or jocundity in appearance bespeaks the mournfulness or jocundity of his employers. In earlier times the services of the _aanspreker_ were augmented by those of the _huilebalk_, a kind of a professional mourner, who, in the case of a death, accompanied the _aanspreker_ on his rounds and wept more or less fluently after the completion of each doleful message. His coat was long-tailed and his hat wide-brimmed and the extent of his sorrow in each case depended wholly upon the receipts for his services; the more money, the more tears. Both must have been depressing professions at best, but this manner of announcing the news constituted an essential factor of every funeral. The _aanspreker_ is often seen to-day, but the _huilebalk_ has wept himself out of existence, probably on account of a simple dearth of apprentices. The patron saint, almost, of Rotterdam is Gherardt Gherardts, better known by the more poetic name of Erasmus Desiderius--meaning “beloved and long desired”--scholar, critic, philosopher, intellectual fly-by-night, born in Rotterdam in 1466. A bronze statue of him by Hendrik de Keyser decorates the Groote Markt of his birthplace. Known best by his immortal satire, “The Praise of Folly,” and for his being, in 1516, the first to be so bold as to amend the text of the Greek New Testament, Erasmus was undoubtedly the “intellectual dictator of his age.” He entered the order of the Brethren of the Common Life, first at ’S Hertogenbosch and later at Delft, and the year America was discovered saw him acting as secretary to the Bishop of Cambrai. He studied in Paris, in Orleans, in Oxford, in Rome, and then returned to England to accept a professorship at the University of Cambridge. He died in Basle in 1536.