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Wairarapa Standard, Volume XVIII, Issue 1680, 2 March 1885, Page 3

Holland is the cleanest country in the world, as everybody knows, but no one can understand how very clean cleanliness can be until be visits her little villages. Even The Hague is a wonder of neatness, and ou every Friday and Saturday undergoes an indescribable drenching and scouring. Water flies about everywhere on these two days from hose and garden squirt in jets, and from tubs aud pails in torrents; there is an immense clattering about of women in wooden shoes, and the whisking and scraping of brooms and scrubbing brushes resound ou all sides. Not only the windows, but also the sides of the houses are scoured; not only the sidewalk, but the roadway as well, until one thiuks that the dikes all over the country have given way at once, and the sea has again come into possession of its ancient domain. But in the smaller towns the swash and gurgle of water seems to go on all the time, and the people to be absolutely daft on the subject of neatness. But the effects of so much washing and scrubbing is very agreeable, and one immediately feels delight in seeing the peaceable fruits of the virtue which is universally held to be second only to godliness.