Hendrik Bally, a 65-year old man, nearly deaf and blind, who lived with his boss Farmer Kolkman, was badly treated for years.

In The Netherlands, which takes its welfare-state benefits seriously, a conscientious civil servant in the village of Diepenveen (pop. 4,018) decided to go out and inform a local farm hand named Hendrik Bally in person that the government, now that he had turned 65, would henceforth pay him a pension…