The story illustrates either the credulity of
magistrates or the practical character of some varieties of maternal
love.
Kampen, nearer the mouth of the Yssel, close to Zwolle, is
exceedingly well worth visiting. The two towns are very different:
Zwolle is patrician, Kampen plebeian; Zwolle suggests wealth and
light-heartedness; at Kampen there is a large fishing population and no
one seems to be wealthy. Indeed, being without municipal rates, it is,
I am told, a refuge of the needy. Any old town that is on a river, and
that river a mouth of the Rhine, is good enough for me; but when it is
also a treasure house of mediaeval architecture one's cup is full. And
Kampen has many treasures: beautiful fourteenth-century gateways,
narrow quaint streets, a cheerful isolated campanile, a fine church,
and the greater portion of an odd but wholly delightful stadhuis in
red brick and white stone, with a gay little crooked bell-tower and
statues of great men and great qualities on its facade.
For one possession alone, among many, the stadhuis must be visited--its
halls of justice, veritable paradises of old oak, with a very wonderful
fireplace. The halls are really one, divided by a screen; in one half,
the council room, sat the judges, in the other the advocates, and,
I suppose, the public.
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