The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1877-10-05
ALUcKY FIND.



Russia has been caustlcally de-
fined as ga country with it's upper
class gone, its lower class not yet
come, and no middle class at all :"
and it is undoubtedly true that the
commercial and manufacturing in
terests of the empire are stil1 very
inadequstely represented. At the
time of the emancipation of 1861
there was In Russia proper, out OF
g population. of 55,000O0Q, only
1000, 600 bHrgesssss and substantial
tradesmeD, q large proportion of
whom were utterly xnneducated !;
many, indeed, had accQally been
serfs themselves, and owed their
advancement entirely to their own
Industry and native shreWdness.
If unweaT1ed courage and peFsever-
ance constitutes q title to honor, the
famous Naza-Off, now the fashion,
able confectionersof ST Patersburg,
ought to stand very high On the
role eff "self-made men, as also
the sbrOiheEs SapOjDikoff. ofszAstra-
khapy " BIO no W UW n, az millionaires,
the once WhOse floors they swept
fifty years ago. But it must be own
ed that the bulk of this class are
very trough diamonds" indeed.
The Russian merchant, as he APP
pears on the stage and in popular
novels, unkePt, unwssked, redolent
of bad brandy and worse tobacco,
garnishing his conversation at eve-
ry turn with coarse oaths, and
jokes coarser still, is merely a hu-
morous sexaggerstion OF she real I'M.
dividuaI, who changes his shirt
once q month, drinks tea BY the
gallon, aud eats sailed cuenmbers
by tile bnshel, combs his hair with
his fingers, anda greetsA every &C.
qnaintance with'a rstsnfOrian shout
of "Wci', Yea son of dog! how
the devil are you >to-day2v I'm in
formally glad to see you'd" VI ,.
) Rough and uncuItiVated as the
majority of this class are, however,
they yield to no men living In their
aptitude for. business, aAaS not in
frequently accumulate enormous
fortunes. One of the richest trades
men in st. Petersburg at the pres
emf time was,a seff before the emah- :
ciPaiton, aud owes his wealth en-
tirefy 10 lhis own industry. In on5
or two cases, however, the altered
fortunes of. the Russian traders
have had much more romantic
history, and once such instance,
which occurred while Twas in Rus
STA, is we'll worth quoting In the
words of the hero himself;
"When my old uncle, = Nikolai
Oisipof, (may the kingdom of
heaven be hisl came to die, we ex-
pected that he would leave as some
thing handsome, for 1 have always
been q faYorite with him; but all
that he gave 1s was his old carved
oak bureau, telling me, that There
was more in 1t than there seemed
to be- However, fhats wasn't the
case, for we found just nothing in
itat'all; so we made sure that the
old man must have been wandering,
and thought no more about it.
tlesshop down aEtho far end the
Gorokhovaga; Zone of the three
main thoroughfares of st. Peters
burg } and although / didn't get
very fat upon what made, yet still
there was enough to buy bread and
salt, as the saying is. But when
the bad times came in the year &c,
and everybody was short OF money,
| began to run short, too; and
short got to be shorter, and shorter
still, ill at last Ehard3y knew which
way to turn. However, as the
ptoverb says, 'crying won't mend 9
broken Leg so l lust set my teeth
and worked on. But l can tell you
that soEnetimes;when the children
came about me st night, and asked
why never bought them any pref
ty things now, as I used to do, it
was as bad az If somebody had beat
en- me. IN &TAF II SEFTfa
@Weil, at last it came to this, that
either we must sell of all our things
for what they would fetch, OF else
go to the wall altogether; SO the
day for the sale was fixed, and the
announcements sent out. And then.
the night before it was to come off,
after the achlldeen had bean putto
bed (our little Sergie was i'll Just
then, aud zhadn't slept for three
nights together), my wife and. I
were sitting among the old turni-
tpre, that WouId be scatteFed ali oy-
er lheT town. Iding
each others hands without sAyiix q
word-when all at once there came
q knock at the door. 4ME
II went t0 open, and there was
the Police Inspector OF the quarter,