The weekly Floridian. [volume] (Tallahassee, Fla.) 1867-19??, 1881-05-10
Irregular Correspondenc6.l }

ST. PETERSBURG, April 18th, 1891
The City Of the Car may, in short, be defined
as larger edition-its population is not as great
German Kaiser You may ascribr the sadness,
the monoteny, and the silence Of metropolitan
life in Russia to merciless asperityof the climate;
still, would venture to point out that what is
known as a "cold snap" in New York City,
although it does not last so long as a Russian
winter, rivals the intensity of thai ufn.er in its
npping and eager keenness, and yet that there
are very few open air spectacles, 10 be seen in
this working world buster and more joyous than
Broadway between A. t. Stewards Dry Good
Stores and Tifany's on Union square, at about
four P. N. Also you may urge that ST. Peters
burg must needs be melancholy Just now, under
the dire bereavement which has fallen on its
loyal population and that all The fashionable
world being in mourning they cannot be expect
ed to 60 shopping in the Nevskgi or the Great
Morskaia; in short, that for season all CHEEKY
life and sociality have been crushed out of the
Great City. 1t will not cease to remain duh and
melancholy so long as it remains what it is-his
Imperial Maiestys Jail 1t is nothing more nor
less than hugh prison, with about hundred
and fifty thousand jailors in civil and military
uniform to look after about five hundred thou
sand prisoners, of whom tithG perhaps may
be legally or Illegally desirous ofhaving free
Constitution established while The remaining
nine-tenths do not know what a free Constitu-
ton is; are not fit to enjoy its privileges; would
not know " hat to do with CONSTITUTION if they
got one, beyond setting forth, much more swiftly
than their sleighs ever travelled pest-haste to
the Devil, mundanely speaking. .Bui is the cap
ital o. Russia to remain jails If you doubt its
being one, go there and see things for yourself
Try how you ike having your Letters opened in
the post-ofice, and your telegrains subjected to
the revision of the official censor. See what
effect is produced on your temper by being con-
tinually subjected ts surveillance and espionage,
or by being worried in your hotel bedroom by
the passport clerk attached to the establishment,
whs is continually wanting to know how you
effected an entrance into Russia and how many
days longer youfntend TO stay ID that agreeable
country; whether you have ever been there be-
fore, and what reasons brought you there the
last time of your coming; and why the foreign
oface passport you brought wilhy you was issued
by Mr. Evarts instead Of Mr. Blaine. l tested
the stupidity OF gendarme onthe frontier by
showing him very old passpoFf signed by Mr.
Seward nineteen years ago; and be was perfect
ly satisfied. Finally, should be anxious to
know how you would like TO live in city into
which it is prohibited to introduce tive of the
most important of the daily newspapers publish
ed in London; and where your Phaek your IL
lastrated London Nesrs. and youi. Graphic, when
you are permitted to receive those journals, are
found to have passed through The of8cial CEN
sor's dirty paws, and to have betn muiilated and
defaced by him-now by the enEire excison Of .
portrait or cartoon. now by he blocking or
stamping out with some flthy black compound
Of some article or paragraph which has been
found obnoxious in the eyes Of. censorious and
inquisitorial authority. Yes, 81 Petersburg is
his Imperial Majesty's JAN, with vengeance.
When Peter the great created this essentially
artificial city, and which win 90 by the board
some day, with its more rotten iystem Of tyran-
ny, stupidity and corruption, btiils On piles In
| the middle Of morass, he did so-with the sYow-
ed intention Of having "a window locking into
Europe But bis successors, iE the insanity OF
their selfish despotism, took good care to guard
| the window with tFiple row Of bars