The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1881-10-27
Railroads I'm Russia.

A Moscow letter to the London 7gnad
gives the following hattering account OF
railroads In Russia and their benefit to
that country:
eff there is country in the world
,or whose special benefit railways may
De said to have been invented, that coun-
ssy is decidedly Russia. From st. Pc
tersburg to Moscow the distance is 604
versts, or 403 English miles, and the
night train travels over It In fifteen
hours, not reckoning stoppages, which
is considered fair average speed on the
continent. In posting-times, all that
horse-desh, by the most strenuous ef-
forts, had been made to achieve was the
conveyance Of the imperial mails be-
tween the.two cities in five days and
five nights, or 100 hours, the rate being
three and one-haf miles hourly. The
gain in time is, perhaps, greater IN this
than in any other country; but in no
country has that speed, which is, after
all, the only real advantage of railway
travelling, been less counteracted by its
undeniable drawbacks. In England, for
instance, railways have robbed ts OF all
the charms OF the road, the shady park,
the breezy common, the crowding vii
layers, the chaf of driver and hostler,
the ingle nook at the wayside inn, the
foaming ale of the stirrup- cup in France
and Italy of the sight of the hundred
minor towns, with their cathedrsls and
town halls in the market-place, the lus-
cious fruits, the lively faces, the quaint
costumes which enlivened us at every
stage. We travelled then through the
life of the country. All we enjoy r0w is
the blank dead wall of the station, the
thronged platform, the piles of luggage,
the engine-shriek, the stale sandwich,
the hurry-skurry, the sour look of fell
low passengers, more thankful for our
room than our company, and from sta
ton to station two hours prison, boxed
up, locked up at the guards discretion,
the express tearing away deaf to our
sufferings or dangers, cooped up with
bears or bores, and with the chances of
| falling in with Muller or Lefroy.
"In Russia alone railway travelling may
be said to have been all gain and no loss.
| There is no Gnein either hemisphere that
comes up to the comfort and luxuries of the
Moscow and st. Petersburg line; roomy
/ and lofty saloon carriages q window seat,
fauteuil Lit, alight luggage net for every
traveller, toilet room at the carriage end,
regular halts at convenient intervals; this
finest stations, the best supplied and
cheapest rsfreshment-rooms, and loftiest,
widest, cleanest platforms tostretch ones
legs in aud everything everywhere con-
trived to protect you from winter cold or
summer heat-a great improvement, all
this, upon the cramped open sledge, with
the thermometer at 80 degrees below
zero, and the cold creeping In and curd-
| fr1,ef
and boots, the snow and sleet pelting
your face, pack of wolves bowling N
your rear, ready TO catch the hindmost,
burrows causing you to bob up and down
in your seat like log on the waves, with
an upset nowand then, and many pass.
engers regularly sea-sick yet even all
these miseries preferable to summer trav.
cling, with the sitting heat and binding
glare of twenty-five hours day and the
dust, both sitting and binding, and the
iolting that broke every bone in you
skin.
"The Russian travels fast, and with
the happy consciousness that neither II
town nor In country does he leave any
thing behind worth lettering for. Evey
Murray, who is bound to say something
Volkhova, Tyer, Kiln and other localities
the train stopped at on our route. And,
as for the country, the panorama is al
most everywhere the Same dreary fla
from end to end, the earth spreading IA,
and wide like broad dish all round te
the horizon, and the blue vault Of HEAVIER
encompassing it like q dish-cover-tht
very idea of the universe as man con
ceived it before Galileo put spectacles OF
his nose and made him see more worlds
than one.'"