LETTERS OF A JAVANESE PRINCESS
earn 10 or 12 cents a day are made to pay a trade tax. Every time a goat or a sheep is butchered a tax of twenty cents is paid. A Satee[1]-merchant who butchers two every day, must pay this tax, which amounts to one hundred and forty-four florins in the course of a year. What is left for his profit? Barely enough to live on.
I learned much of this at my parents’ house, but here where my husband shares every thought with me, where I share his whole life, his work and his troubles, I have come to know of conditions of which I was not only in ignorance, but the very existence of which I did not dream. There is so much crying injustice, and he who loves righteousness and holds office, must suffer indeed. He must see much, and do much himself that is against all principles of right. ··········
Good-day, Moeska ; perhaps this will be my last letter to you. Think sometimes of your daughter who loves you and your husband so dearly, and who presses you now to her heart.
- ↑ Satee is a dish composed of meat strung on a stick and roasted.
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