The debtors' apartments were less neat and orderly than the felons, and I felt a disagreeable smell of gin and tobacco. The men were dirty in their persons, and extremely clamorous for charity. What their allowance was from their creditors I could not precisely learn, it varying according to circumstances; but I understood it was an allowance in money, and as the rates were fixed when all the articles of life were much cheaper than they at present are, the debtors find it a very inadequate support.
The small number of prisoners for debt in Amsterdam is the happy result of the excellent laws of Holland respecting creditors and debtors. No person can be arrested for debt who has not been regularly summoned three times, with the interval of fourteen days between each summons; and six weeks further must elapse from the last official notification and demand of the debt, before the creditor is permitted to arrest, or seize the effects of, the insolvent person. By this indulgent mode of procedure, debtors are generally enabled either fully to settle their
