The Best-Fed City

Hokitika Guardian, 19 August 1922, Page 4

The Best-Fed City

AND THE MOST “OFFICIAL.” (By G. Ward Price iii “Daily Mail.”) THE HAGUE, June 2

The reasdti why the Hague has always been popular for conferences, and why the late Mr Andrew Carnegie built his Sf-i*aricrns-Statioii-liketfeace ftiliici? here, is because it is the city that lias the most “official” atmosphere of ahy iu Europe. The Hague is like a cathedral close; it is so self-eonseiously respeetablc and so very dull. But its diilness is the dultiess of prosperity, like tlie sleeti lethargy of tlie fat cattle that browse on the green Dutch polders. Everything about this little capital is stately aiid simple, solid, substantial, aiid thick. Every one of its inhabitants see in s to be born middleaged. It offers no pleasures that appeal to people'under forty. No variety theatres, no dancing, no night life of any kind, frut the recreation of feeding on the other hand, is catered for more lavishly than almost anywhere ill tlie world.

Expensive though everything else in Holland is, von can get a bigger meal hero for less money thaii in any country of Western Europe. At the Restaurant Royal, which is the best iii tlie Hague, they serve a dinner of hind courses for five giilileii, or 8s (id aiid such courses, each of them a meal in itself.

Half a melon to begin with, then hors-d’neuvre in abundance aiid of elaborate composition, followed by soup, witli a large tureen of it set by the side of each diner, then salmon steaks, then a large variety of cold meats with salads and vegetables, then roast duckling—a whole bird to vour own cheek—accompanied by pineapple and stewed peaches, after which a plate piled high with ice-cream served with hot sauce, then fruit in unlimited quantity and of the host quality, and to end with —oddly enough, but very appetising—a large piece of golden ginger, served with its syrup out of a big green glass jar. “The advantage ol this place,” remarked a Dutch friend, with a contented sigh at Hu* end of dinner, “is that you may hitV'o as many helpings as you wish of any course that you taney.”

Three miles aWav from the staid and respectablo Hague is its upstart little seaside neighbour, Schevenigcti. The stolid burghers of tlie Dutch capital, permanently attired in broadcloth and bombazine, do not go there, but their sons and daughters go daily, in this slimmer season. Every evening theie is an unceasing procession of bicycles along the camilside road that leads from the Hague to Seheveniiigeu, for, since there are no hills in Holland to discourage cyclists, the bicycle is the most popular form of transportation in the country.

Schevcningen is nothing hut a row o; hotels set- down on a flat sandy bench, and the searching qualities of the wind which sweeps down on to it are evidenced hv the multiplicity of glass screens behind which visitors may shelter from its bite. It is here that the delegations to the Hague Conference have been lodged., . „.. s . ._