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Dutch Customs

Dutch Customs image
Parent Issue
Day
11
Month
April
Year
1879
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

In Broeck, no one enters the house by the front door, nor is any one seen at the front window. The front of the house is where the best "parlors" are, which are sacred to cleanliness and solitude. Irving's description of such an apartment is rigidly true: "The mistress and her confldential mald visit it once a week, for the purpose of giving it a thorough cleaning and putting things to right, alwaya taking the precaution of leaving their slioes at the door, and entering devoutly on their stocking feet. After scrubbing the floor, sprinkling the floor with fine white sand, which was curiously stroked into angles, and curvea, and rhomboids; after washingthe Windows, rubbing and polishing the furniture, and putting a new branch of evergreens in the fireplace, the window shutters were again closed to keep out the flies, and the room caref ully locked up till the revolution of time brought around the weekly cleaning day." Thepeople of Broeck always enter their houses by back doors, like so many burglars ; and to insure the front door froni unholy approach, the steps leading to it are removed, never to be placed there but when three great occasions open the mystic gate, and these are births, marriages. and f unerals ; so that to enter a Dutchman'a house by that way is indeed an "e vent."

Article

Subjects
Old News
Michigan Argus