The total is 810,192 in towns, and 1,070,271 in the flat countries, making the entire population of the United Pro vinces, in the year 1796, to be 1,880,463. The population of the province of Holland, as stated above, in the year 1732, was 980,000, and in the year 1796 it was 828,542, which shows a decrease of 151,458 inhabitants, equal to one thirteenth of the whole population.
The people of Holland may be divided into the follow ing classes :—the clowns, or boors, who cultivate the land ; the mariners, or skippers, who navigate the ships and in land boats ; the merchants and tradei s, who fill the towns ; the renterners, or men that also live in towns, upon the rents of their estates ; and the gentlemen, officers of the army and navy, magistrates, &c. The boors feed chiefly on herbs, roots, and milk. The other classes drink enormous quantities of tea and coffee, or, more properly speaking, of lukewarm water scarcely coloured. A great quantity of spirituous liquors are also drank ; 456,000 ankers of geneva being annually consumed in the province of Holland. The class of gentlemen, or nobles, is very limited ; most of the families having been extinguished in the long wars with Spain.
Of the characteristic manners and customs of the people of Holland we can only mention a few. To every house throughout North Holland there are two doors ; one of which is never opened but when a corpse or a christening is carried from the house, while the other serves for the ordinary purposes of the family : this custom is peculiar to North Holland. The houses in almost every part of the province have a gay appearance, the windows and doors in general being painted green. The most scrupulous clean liness is practised respecting them ; not only the windows, but the whole front of the houses, in most of the towns, is generally washed two or three times a-week, by engines for that purpose, which are abundantly supplied with wa ter from the canals ; and the same care is extended to the pavement of the streets in which the more opulent inhabi tants reside. A Dutch house, in the old style of building, such as they are seen in Leyden more particularly, is ge nerally six stories high, the three first of which arc of an equal breadth, but of unequal heights ; from the third story the roof rises to a point, and the rooms in this part of the house necessarily diminish in size as they approach to the top of the building. The front wall of the upper apart
ments projects so much from the roof as nearly to hide it, unless viewed in profile ; and the exterior of each room diminishes, till that of the attic story is two-thirds less than the basement. To the aperture of the uppermost room is commonly fixed a small crane, for the convenience of hoist ing up wood and turf, and these cranes sometimes have gro tesque figures carved upon them. In the large and com mercial towns, it frequently happens, that apartments that would grace the mansion of a prince have no other views from their windows than the dead walls of a warehouse, used as a magazine for stock-fish, skins, tobacco, &c. so that the eye may turn from the works of Rubens and Titian to these disagreeable and disgusting objects.
The custom of smoking is so prevalent in Holland, that a genuine Dutch boor, instead of describing the distances of places by miles or hours, says, they are so many pipes asunder. Thus a man may reach Delft from Rotterdam in four pipes ; but, if he goes on to the Hague, he will smoke seven during the journey. Adjoining to their theatres is a room where refreshments are to be sold, and here the lovers of tobacco resort, to smoke their pipes between the acts. Their rigid attention to cleanliness, and bigoted attach ment to smoking, jointly give rise to a most inconvenient and disgusting custom. After dinner, there is placed on the table, along with the wine and glasses, a spitting-pot, which is handed round as regularly as the bottle. All Dutchmen of the lower classes of society, and not a few in the higher walks of life, carry in their pocket the whole ap paratus that is necessary for smoking : a box of enormous size, which frequently contains half a pound of tobacco ; a pipe of clay, or ivory, according to the fancy or wealth of the possessor ; if the latter, he carries also instruments to clean it ; a pricker to remove obstructions from the tube of the pipe ; a cover of brass wire for the bowl, to prevent the ashes, or sparks, of the tobacco from flying out ; and some times a tinder-box, or bottle. of phosphorus, to procure fire in case none is at hand.