Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1892-09-24
WAITING FOR THE TRAIN.

nave ever met. The people seem to eat at
every station and the beauty of 1t is you can
md something good to eat every time the train
stops. Iwish could show you a plate of Russian
soup. One plate is big enough for a meal, but
the Russians take it only appetizer. The
favorite soup is called stachee and it is made
OF cabbage and other vegetables with piece of
meat about four inches square and two inches
thick in the middle of it. In addition to this
they bring you bowl of thick cream, which is
sometimes sour and sometimes fresh to pour
into IT in order to give it body, and this mo-
lasses-hke mixture you eat, and you like it. 1t
Is not bad, i assure you. But | have never
found myself able to get beyond the first course
for after you have taken the liquid part of the
soup you are expected to carve up and eat the
meat, and the meat forms quite a meal in it
self. The trains usually make long stops at
the stations and from thirty to forty minutes
Tor a dinner Is not uncommon. At every
station peddlcrs come around with fruits. cakes
and drInkables, and a common sight is the old
fellow with the samovar in which he makes tea
and serves to all who will buy. 1t makes no
difference how hot it is this always
his overcoat. and a long-visored cap usually
shrouds his eyes. He is generally bearded and
he has fat, jolly face like that of Santa Claus.
His tea Is good and he serves it with bit of
lemon and a lump of the hardest sugar you have
ever put between your teeth. II you drink the
tea rs he does you will put lump of sugar
between YOUR teeth and suck the tea through
this, and the chances are that when YOU get
old as he is YOUR teeth will be in the decayed
condition OF his. Nine-tenths of the Russian
peasants have bad teeth and there is more
chance for good enterprising dentists here than
anywhere else in the world. | don't doubt but
that there are five hundred million cavities
ready at this writing in this empire for five
hundred million gold amalgam plugs, and the
Russian with sound teeth is the exception.
THIRD-CLsss CARS.
To
the poor class in Russia. The third-class cars
are always full They are more like cattle cars
than anything else. There are no cushions on
the seats. and the people are crowded in in all
sorts of ways. They are not supposed to have
any rights that the railroad officials are bound
to respect, and l saw one man knocked down
and showed back into the station just as
the car was about to start because he did not
have his ticket in his hand. He told the guard
that the party OF peasants with whom he was
travelling had the ticket apd they had already
got on the cars. but this did him good and
though he cried and howled he was held back
while the car bore his friends and his family
away. The peasant cannot travel in Russia
without a passport. | have not had to show
my passport at the railroad depots except when
| came into Russia but the peasant dare not
go from one part OF Russia TO the other without
permission of the local government under
which he lives and be is asked to show hfs pass
port at the ticket office. At Tamboff 1 saw a
whole crowd of peasants who were
ince. Each had his passport in his
hand and they stood in single file
waiting for their turns to buy their tickets. 1t
was at this same station that | my first
prison cur. These Russian roads have cars es-
pecially devoted 20 the carving of prisoners
and the prisoners which are taken from here to
Siberia go by rail to Nijni-Novogrod whence
they are put on prison boats and are carried
down the VOlga and up the river Kama to Perm
and thence start on their march to the wilds of
Siberia. These cars had iron bars and windows,
and they guarded by soldiers who are ready
to shoot any who try to escape. The cars them
selves are third-class ones and the prisoners sit
on hard boards rather than cushions.
THE LUGGAGE ARRANGEMENTS.
1t don't pay to carry much baggage in
Russia. / have trunk with me that weighs
about two hundred pounds and it costs me IS
every time l move. Only forty pounds of bag
gage is allowed with ticket here ami the excess
Is always charged for. There is no charge.
however. for packages carried inside the cars
and the result is that every passenger has half
dozen bundles and the cars are filed with
packages and baskets and trunks with handles
on them. The poorer classes carry all their
baggage into the cars with them, and the
most of them are too poor to own trunk they
wrap their goods up in cloths and carry them in
bundles on their backs. If they have TO wait
over night at the station they throw these
bundles down for a pillow and sleep on the
stones, and a common sight at almost any of
these stations is a Russian peasant family, the
father of which is generally sleeping and the
mother either chatting with her neighbors or
engaged in her never-ending search for the
animals which infest her childrens heads.
RUssIAs GREATEST NEED.
Railroads are Russias greatest need The
present era Of railroad building is producing
but little in comparisou with what Russia sbou,a