There were the gentry in their coaches, dressed like Parisians fresh
from the Boulevards; Amsterdam children in charity uniforms; girls
from the Roman-Catholic Orphan-House, in sable gowns and white
headbands; boys from the Burgher Asylum, with their black tights and
short-skirted, harlequin coats. [Footnote: This is not said in
derision. Both the boys and girls of this institution wear garments
quartered in red and black alternately. By making the dress thus
conspicuous, the children are, in a measure, deterred from wrong-doing
while going about the city. The Burgher Orphan-Asylum affords a
comfortable home to several hundred boys and girls. Holland is famous
for its charitable institutions.] There were old-fashioned gentlemen
in cocked hats and velvet knee-breeches; old-fashioned ladies, too, in
stiff, quilted skirts, and bodices of dazzling brocade. These were
accompanied by servants bearing foot-stoves and cloaks. There were the
peasant-folk arrayed in every possible Dutch costume--shy young
rustics in brazen buckles; simple village-maidens concealing their
flaxen hair under fillets of gold; women whose long, narrow aprons
were stiff with embroidery; women with short corkscrew curls hanging
over their foreheads; women with shaved heads and close-fitting caps;
and women in striped skirts and windmill bonnets; men in leather, in
homespun, in velvet and broadcloth; burghers in model European attire,
and burghers in short jackets, wide trousers, and steeple-crowned
hats.

There were beautiful Friesland girls in wooden shoes and coarse
petticoats, with solid gold crescents encircling their heads, finished
at each temple with a golden rosette, and hung with lace a century
old. Some wore necklaces, pendants, and ear-rings of the purest gold.
Many were content with gilt, or even with brass; but it is not an