to
the conservation and preservation of the Flemish language and the
ancient traditions, which were powerful among the people, although their
circulation could not have been very profitable. The peasantry in truth
were very ignorant, and knew of very little beyond their own parishes.
The educational standard of the people of West Flanders was certainly
low, and it was a matter of comment among the opponents of the
established church, that education being in the hands of the clergy,
they invariably defeated plans for making it compulsory. But
nevertheless, the peasantry were to all appearances both contented and
fairly happy.

As their wants were few and primitive, their living was cheap. Their
fare was coffee, of which they consumed a great deal, black bread, salt
pork and potatoes. The use of oleomargarine was universal in place of
butter. They grew tobacco in their small gardens for their own use, and
also, it is whispered, smuggled it [and gin] over the border into
France. They worked hard and long from five in the morning until seven
or eight in the evening.

The Flemish farmhouse was generally well built, if somewhat untidy
looking, with the pigstys and out buildings in rather too close
proximity for comfort. There was usually a large living room with heavy
sooty beams overhead, and thick walls pierced by quaint deeply sunken
windows furnished often with seats. These picturesque rooms often
contained "good finds" of the old Spanish furniture, and brass; but as a
rule the dealers had long since bought up all the old things, replacing
them by "brummagem,"--modern articles shining with cheap varnish.

The peasants themselves in their everyday clothes certainly did not
impress the observer greatly. They were not picturesque, they wore the
sabot or "Klompen," yellow varnished, and clumsy in shape. Their
stockings were coarse gray worsted. Their short trousers were usually
tied with a string above the calf, and they wore a sort of smock,
sometimes of linen unbleached, or of a shining sort of dark purple thin
stuff.

The usual headgear was for the men a cap with a glazed peak and for the
women and girls a wide flapped embroidered linen cap, but this headgear
was worn only in the country towns and villages. Elsewhere the costume
was fast disappearing. On Sundays when dressed in their holiday clothes
these peasants going to or returning from mass, looked respectable and
fairly prosperous, and it was certainly clear tha