Page:A Tour Through the Batavian Republic.djvu/212

200 people in England. This difference, to the honour of Holland, arises from the simple, unostentatious manners of the nation, and its republican constitution, which, though vitiated and diseased in its legislative and executive powers, ought to be reverenced for its effects on the private and domestic institutions of life. The abolition of the use of liveries has destroyed an invidious mark of distinction between the master and the servant, without abridging the former of any of his proper authority, or furnishing the latter with any excuse for insolence. The treatment of female servants in Holland is remarkably kind and humane; unless for sufficient grounds of removal, they generally continue in a family for a number of years, and are considered rather as humble members of it, than as domestics. The regularity with which the Dutch live, renders the labours of their servants comparatively easy, from the circumstance that as they are acquainted with the whole of the daily work which they have to perform, so they are enabled to execute it in a manner most convenient