ligious
family."

The last sentence may do good, for the Sterns are Lutherans. I posted
that letter. You understand that old Mr. Stern could not very well give
his custom to Busselinck and Waterman, if his son were in our office.

When _Max Havelaar_ gets to Java the narrative is less satisfactory,
so tangential does it become, but there are enough passages in the
manner of that which I have quoted to keep one happy, and to show how
entertaining a satirist of his own countrymen at home "Multatuli"
(whose real name was Edward Douwes Dekker) might have been had he
been possessed by no grievance.

The book, which is very well worth reading, belongs to the literature
of humanity and protest. Its author had to suffer much acrimonious
attack, and was probably called a Little Hollander, but the fragment
from an unpublished play which he placed as a motto to his book shows
him to have lacked no satirical power to meet the enemy:--

_Officer_.--My Lord, this is the man who murdered Betsy.

_Judge_.--He must hang for it. How did he do it?

_Officer_.--He cut up her body in little pieces, and salted them.

_Judge_.--He is a great criminal. He must hang for it.

_Lothario_.--My Lord, I did not murder Betsy: I fed and clothed and
cherished her. I can call witnesses who will prove me to be a good man,
and no murderer.

_Judge_.--You must hang. You blacken your crime by your
self-sufficiency. It ill becomes one who ... is accused of anything
to set up for a good man.

_Lothario_,--But, my Lord, ... there are witnesses to prove it;
and as I am now accused of murder....

_Judge_.--You must hang for it. You cut up Betsy--you salted the
pieces--and you are satisfied with your conduct--three capital
counts--who are you, my good woman?

_Woman_.--I am Betsy.

_Lothario_.--Thank God! You see, my Lord, that I did not murder her.

_Judge_.--Humph!--ay--what!--What about the salting?

_Betsy_.--No, my Lord, he did not salt me:--on the contrary, he did
many things for me ... he is a worthy man!

_Lothario_.--You hear, my Lord, she says I am an honest man!

_Judge_.--Humph!--the third count remains. Officer, remove the
prisoner, he must hang for it; he is guilty of self-conceit.

Shopkeeping--to return to Amsterdam--is the Dutch people's life. An
idle rich class they may have, but it does not assert itself. It is
hidden away at The Hague or at Arnheim. In Amsterdam every one is busy
in one trade or another. There is no Pa