The Emporia weekly news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1881-1889, 1885-12-10
LIFE IN ST. PETERSBURG.

The really mysterious element of life
in St. Petersburg is one that transcends
Western experiences. Below the out
ward forms of things you enter an at
mosphere in which thought seems limit
ed by new laws. Out Of novel habits,
strange customs, hereditary legacies of
the intellect in which you have had no
share, the fancy makes stair for its as
cent into another planet. The differen-
ces you encounter everywhere are un-
likenesses not between Aryan and Aryan,
but between Europe and Asia on the one
hand, between a new and an old civili-
cation on the other. Readily would the
native help you in your bewlderments,
were it within his power, but the abnor-
NAL to you is the normal to him. You
call upon him to look, and he sees MOTH
ing Your spectres are his thin air, the
novelties you italicize his daily common
place. So that in time your surprise be-
comes less demonstrative, if not less
acute. In time your diary is content to
hold the mirror up TO nature. THE nu-
nicipal council" for example, has Just
fixed the price of bread for the next
twelve months 1.-THE Golos punished
for improper tendencies by an order de-
priving it for six months of the right to
publish advertisements. " ''The authori-
ties about to raise money by imposing
tax on all foreigners resident in St
Petersburg" Newspapers contain APP
peals on behalf of poor families In the
capital" ga Yell-known police official
purchases the wife of subordinate for
ten thousand roubles." Newspaper
proprietor exiled to a northern province
for having published a cartoon repre-
senting, in q series of nine views, the
TOW re. Of, Il okf
and finally forced to retire into kennel;
the whole without headline, but believed
in official circles to be an allusion to the
Tsar's enforced retirement to CATCHING"
'Householders warned that the morrow
is the 'name-day' of the empress, and
that they must celebrate on the occasion
that is to say, hang out banners and
burn lamps-or to pay heavy penalty"
And thus it runs on, the record of events,
mere story of familiar experience to the
native Russian, but to the foreigner a
tale Of doings in world all other than
his own.
1t may be well here to remind the
reader that the habit of living in lodg-
ings is general in st. Petersburg. So
far as Russian life is bivouac, the
term lodgings is aptly used; etymolog-
ically, it corresponds with the English
IOuSc OE 10
without the sense usually associated with
it in the west. In the capital man
who lives in his own house occupies lit
tie more than a corner of it, or sleeps in
palace. Some of the richest families
are content with lodgings. and but few
of them need all the apartments which
constitute st. Petersburg fiat. This Is
in itself suggestive of the scale upon
which houses are built in the great Rus
sian cities. But it is all too inadequate
as preparation for the statement that a
St. Petersburg lodging-house frequently
contains as many as a thousand rooms,
with a population of from two to three
thousand persons. The finest apartments
are on the ground floor; the poorest are
reached by ascent of from ten to twelve
stories. a suit of six rooms suffices for
the wealthiest dodgers who have no pal
ace of their own. Two or three supply
all the needs of the well-to-do trades
man and his family; the majority of pro
fessional men who are bachelors, and a
large class of officials find themselves
| amply accommodated by single apart
ment. The cost of lodgings depends, of
course. upon such elements as situation,
number and furnishing of rooms, height
of flat, and service. As a rule, It may
be said that, taking into consideration
| the general purchasing power of the
money expended precaution consist
emily neglected in international compari-
| sons of this hnd-house rent is some
what higher in St Petersburg than it is
In Paris or London. offer these details
simply in order that the reader may be
better prepared for singular custom to
which here invite his attention. Rent
charges in Russia are invariably exacted
Gin advance" even when ledger sur
rounds himself with luggage valuable
enough to yield the amount of whole
| years arrears. Upon personal property
of this kind there can be legally no lien.
| The same Russian law which hampers
foreigner and native alike with the po-
lice surveillance of passport regulations.
Selling every opportunity to throw OBJ
stacles IN the way of free movement
| gives to lodger the fullest right to car
~ of his luggage in Che teeth of an irate
landlord clamoring for the settlement o.
his unpaid bill. Any forcible detention
of property in such cases is treated by
/ the courts as quasf-criminal offense.
| How easy il is, under such circumstan.
ces, to attach to a whole class an I'M
deserved stigma Of sordid caution, or d
| suspicious distrust of their fellow-beings
viii be at once seen. The law itself i
an interesting survival; its origin, as q
| defense of personal rights In the country
where the modern ukaz so frequently ig
nores them, must lie as deeply IN histori
cal causes as the democratic period It
self. Edmund Noble 81 December at
Ed1stic.