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Show IMPRESSIONS OLD AND NEW Dover to Ostend General Sketch of Belgium Its Commerce and Indus- ? try Customs of People Old Age Pensions Army and Schools. j ' ' ii (Written for Intermountain Catholic. ) I The journey from Dover to Ostend in bad J j weather is very disagreeable. The boats are very j small and uncomfortable and in storms they are j j tossed about just like an eggshell. However, there f is one good thing about the journey, it does not i take long; only some four hours. The Flemish r f coast is very pretty, and dotted with quaint old i villas, towns and citie3. A3 you enter the harbor of Ostend you get a good view of that fashionable I city, especially of the beautiful promenade and the two majestic buildings, the Kursaal and Town Hall. s When you land at the quay your baggage 13 in- j spected by a stolid Belgian official, who takes his time and says nothing, provided you have no contraband. con-traband. These officials can for the most part speak the English language and French. Their j own language is guttural and so unpleasant to the ear, and some words embrace all the letters of the 1 alphabet. It would be well before I give my read- ' ers an idea of Ostend and the other quaint old Flem- ish cities to give him a general notion of the coun- ! try and the people, their manners and customs. Bel- gian, for the size of it. is the most remarkable j country in the world. It is about the size of the I province of Munster, Ireland, and how a popula- tion of over 7,000,000 people eke out an existence i3 a problem an eatern person would find it difficult jj to solve. Yet they do it, and the strange fact is. ; you have no really poor among the population. All j are fairly well-to-do, with none very rich. Farmers Farm-ers from different parts of the world come to Bel- gian to learn lessons in agriculture, thrift and in- dustry, and the lesson they learn is of the greatest advantage to them. Agriculture employs, roughly speaking, about a fourth part of the population and J the mineral wealth, too, is considerable. You have here and there throughout the country as many as 300 coal pits, white marble, iron, lead, copper and zinc are in abundance. The country is very flat if we. except a portion about Brussels called the Ar- dennes, and every inch of that ground the Belgian utilizes. You have no such thing as large ditches or headlands. The crop marks the boundary line 1 between one farm and another, and as you walk along the public roads you can touch with your ' hand wheat, barley, beans, tobacco, flax, beet root, I potatoes and almost every kind of vegetable. Not a foot of ground but has its use and not even for a day is the land allowed to lie idle. I often counted as many as ten crops growing in a plot about an acre in extent. From daybreak till dark- 1 ness covers the land the farmer is hard at work -upon his patch taking every ounce it can afford out ; of it. Their farm implements are most primeval. ; Unwieldly plows and harrows, drawn for the most ; part by lean oxen ; carts long, low and narrow with j large rimmed wheels that even when empty seem a veritable load in themselves are indeed curious to ) our modern notions. The light carts, such as milk, I bread and vegetable, are drawn by two dogs, who seemingly enjoy their yoke if we may judge o their joyous barks as they career along. The houses in the country are neat and numerous, with a tiled roof, and for the most part one storied. In about f every two miles you come upon a village, a veritable hive of industry, with a stately church and numer- ous schools; and one of these schools will surely ; be an industrial one. In the summer the country looks very beautiful as you wander through the narrow paths between the different colored crops. As far as your eye can reach you see fields and fields of golden grain, meadows, orchards and flower gardens. gar-dens. In the cities the principal industry is the mills, principally the cotton and hardware. At 5 r o'clock in the morning you hear the patter patter i of the heavy sabots outside on the pavements as I the people journey to their work. In that throng j you will find men and women of every age, for in ! Belgium there is no bread for the idler. The hours of work are indeed long from 6 .in the morning to j 7:30 at night, with half an hour's interval in the ' , morning for breakfast and one hour for dinner. Thg wages in Belgium is miserable, averaging from one shilling and three pence to one shilling and ten pence. The food is cheap and it consists for the most part of vegetables, and the people at their meals seldom use a knife. You can obtain a very good suit of clothes in Belgium for two pounds. The people work hard, but still, when their holidays come around, they enjoy themselves to the utmost. The principal holiday with them is called the Ker- ; mese something equivalent to the Irish "patterns" "pat-terns" and the English "wakes." During this time they decorate their houses with flags, evergreens, ever-greens, flowers and fairy lamps and all work and care seems for the .time to be forgotten. Another great time for amusemenet is the carnival, which takes place on Shrove Tuesday. Dancing and all formes of amusement, masks and dominos are in evidence then and the streets of the cities are one mass of gay people. The government of ths country coun-try is constitutional, modelled largely on that of England. A parliament sitting at Brussels transacts trans-acts the business of the country. The franchise in Belgium is very peculiar. No man ha 3 a vote until un-til he reaches the age of 23 ; then he has one vote. If he takes it into his head to get married his wife brings him another vote, and if with these two aforesaid qualifications he has a profession such as a doctor, lawyer or such like, he ha. three votes. Real or personal estate gives him a fourth vote. The system looks queer; still, as far as I could 3ee it works well enough. In Belgium you have no sueh institutions as poor houses. The old hav '. ; ' (Continued on Pag9 5.). i ' ' - 1 ' ! I IMPRESSIONS OLD AMD NEW (Continued from page 3.) comfortable homes either with the Sisters of Cha lty or in establishments under government nurse and old age pensions have long been establish lhese institutions are models of comfort, ar, where the home is broken up early, as is the ca: in Belgium, are very serviceable. The interests c Belgium are safeguarded by the powers; still si is bound by treaty to keep up an army of a certai strength, and this in time of peace consists of 60,0C men. She has recourse to conscription to obtai her soldiers and I believe that it is the custom c the government to give half the soldier's pay to h parents. Belgium is well off in the matter of educi tion. She has numerous technical, industrial an engineering schools, with three first-class univei si ties Leige, Ghent, and the world-famous Lov vain. I will write at further length about these un versifies m treating of the cities. The religion o Belgium is the Catholic. The bishops and priest are paid by the state. I cannot help thinking tha the church would be far better separated from th state for you always find the most virile churc in these lands in which she is supported by th people. Belgium has a pretty fair system of rail ways, and these, especially the ones constructe along the public roads and running from villag to village, are a great benefit to the country peopff The government has control of the railways, whic fact is a great matter for any country. The Be gian is like his neighbor, the Hollander. He is silent, plodding personage, with the utmost consei vatism for old manners and customs. They fough for their independence and gained it, and thei country ever since it became free from the Dutci yoke has advanced by leaps and bounds. In th summer time the tourists from all lands is a grea source of revenue to Belgium. It is a most inter esting land for the visitor. Aptly called the "cocl pit of Europe;" every city and village in it has i history; and what great names are connected witl that little land! Julius Caesar, the grandson o Charlemagne; Charles V., owner at one time o half the world; Philip II. of Spain. Maria Theresa Napoleon L, Blutcher and Wellington, and so man: more. The visitor will find the people hospitable aiu courteous, and in the country there is a grea amount of simplicity and piety still to be found though in the cities the French element introducec 1A 1 J "il. .11, ji iaie ears uas uuue away wmi a great deal 01 that reverence for God and religion which so dis tinguished the Belgian of another day. The hoteb are numerous and the accommodations , are good You will get your board at a very moderate price and I believe there is no place else that you car spend a holiday at such little expense as in Belgium. Bel-gium. In fact, many settle down altogether to live there because it is best suited to their moderate incomes. in-comes. This is especially the case in the city of Bruges. You will find a great many English-speaking English-speaking people living in that city. Having given my readers a general description of the country. I will now enter into particulars about the different sights and scenes to be met with in the principal cities, and next week I will begin with the now very fashionable and some would add verv fast place, Ostend. NAPPER TANDY. |