THE DISCIPLINED DUTCH.

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 58, 6 September 1934, Page 12

THE DISCIPLINED DUTCH.

Portugal may be no place for.teetotallers, but you have our word forit that nowadays Holland is a paradise only for the Stigginses. We have informed you. already. that husband and wife are :not permitted to.attend the cinema together, but that is only the beginning of an almost incredible story. In Holland you cannot go bathing with your wife, because mixed wave-rollicking is forbidden. To preserve the '■ cathedral-like reverence of Dutch beaches no motor-car may appear in their vicinity. There must; bo no parading in, bathing costumes. But the full impact of Dora's black list is reserved for young people in love. If they aTe caught sitting down together on a plot of grass, a shocked policeman will hustle them off before a Magistrate. He does not care even. if they are not lovers. The only; grass-sitting companion for a respectable man in Holland is a close blood relative. And if you are caught sitting with one of them, the law requires full documentary proof of relationship. A man in Rotterdam was sharply fined for wearing a red tulip in his buttonhole: the Magistrate said it showed that he had Communist tendencies. No. shops may open beside,the Zuyder Zeo on Sundays. But clever business men have side-stepped the law by crowding the streets with automatic slot machines, from which you may purchase anything from a glass of water to • three-course dinner.