Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1881-08-24

Correspondence of the London Times.

oorfeepondence OF the London Times.
What town 1t is, How large, how dismaily
empty. How 1t squats like an immense ALI
gator half In and half out Of a swamp. modelled
on Amsterdam, and reminding one OF Venice,
What miles and miles of prospects" or. as the
French would say, ''boulevards;" what endless
succession OF wide, open spaces and magnificent
distances OF long straight lines OF walls and
rows osEtrees and intermnable avenues. con-
trived, as it We're to allow the town ample room
TO run out OF town. A city Of churches con-
vents and palaces Of steeples and monuments.
OF gold. bronze, granite and marble, of buildings
in all styles, European and Asiatic. quaint origi
mails, or indifferent copies. many of them grand
and massive, yet strewn over space at haphazard
on perfectly fat surface. grouping nowhere;
nowhere laid out for effect or with an eye TO the
picturesque. A town of princes. to all appear
ance, or of wealthy bankers or traders with
nethihg mean. no back slums. no rag fair the
MONIES OF the poor. if at all existing carefully
hidden out of sight; the whole covering scores
vi miles oil ground. maze of isles and slets, of
bridges and embankments, of river, and
branches OF river and canals.
IL rs town made by one man made ON a
plan and for purpose: and when that is said all
Is said 1t was not one of the cities of Gods
own building; consequently. il may be feared.
not one of those that abide Its foundation was
suggested by great thought and il turns ont
now To have been a mistake.
It is questionable, indeed. whether Peter the
Great ever meant st. Petersburg for perma-
nent court residence and capital As late as
liza. seven months before his death, it was not
here, but at Moscow that he celebrated the COR
onatiOn OF his wife Catherine; and if he spent
much of his time on this spot. it was chiefly be-
cause work of such magnitude as he had un-
dertaken required the masters incessant pres
ence. For the rest, all that Peter wanted here
was port, and he could under the eircum-
stances find no better. He built on conquered
ground out Of all the boundaries of Old Russia.
amid Finnish population. the former subjects
of Sweden. He drafted his workmen among
the serfs of all his provinces and wasted 100 600
human lives in the achievement, labor being as
cheap for him as it ever was for the kingly
builders of the Egyptian pyramids. The site
was a swamp-an unhealthy swamp, so unsafe
that some of its finest monuments-the mono
18th column of Alexander /. and the Isaac
church-show in their deep crevices the rand
decay Of which the treacherous ground under
meath is booming them; so unsafe. besides as to
be subject TO foundations. like the ground of
ancient Rome, for the city has already been de-
structively flooded eight times since 1903 the
date OF its foundation, and even last year the
water rose more than ten feet above the ordi-
nary level. driving people from their cellars and
basement floors. as well as from the villas and
gardens OF the lower islands. There were even
FOR many years ominous speculations as to the
possibility OF the whole town being submerged
1.-The Gulf Of Finland" Peter reasoned runs
westward from st. Petersburg, in the direction
"'.ehoo .iio hcdficst stoiins Always dow. I'M
agine storm to set in from the west. in April
or May, when the ice is breaking up. and sup
pose that this should happen just when the
water in the river isat the highest. The masses
of ice blown in from the sea would meet those
that float down from the land side, and the. col
lision between the two opposite masses could
not fail to Overwhelm the whole city, with it's
proud palaces, when princes and beggars would
be drowned promiscuously, like Pharaoh and
his host in the Red Sea-"
The town, however, has already stood 17S
years. and the catastrophe seems indefinitely
adjourned. As no such combination Of storm,
high water and great tlaw as croakers coniured
up has yet occurred, sanguine people have be-
come perfectly skeptical as to the possibility of
the dreaded contingency.