The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1892-09-18

made here. One Of the curious sights of
the Russian streets is the lock peddler,
who walks about with his breast and back
covered with locks, which are hung by
strings over bis shoulders, and this max
ing of locks is one OF the great peasant in
dustries. The locks are nearly all made
by hand and they are of all sorts and
shapes and of all prices from half cent up
TO IS. Soma of them are SO small that II
takes hundred to make O pound and
Others so large that they would drown
cat if one was tied around its neck and it
was thrown into pond.
IN THE BAZAARs.
Every city in Russia has its grand bazaar.
This is known us the Gostini Dvor and
consists of vast building containing many
acres and make up OF all sOrSS OF shops,
which usually open out upon .overed cor
ridors separated from the street by pillars,
SO that you can walk all around the bazaar
and not be affected by the with n. The
interior of one of these vast buildings is
made up of courts and the stores run from
the arcades through to the courts and there
are hundreds upon hundreds of stores in
every bazaar. These store are of all kinds
ard you can find in one of these bazaars
anything you wish from a hairp1n to
sealskin coat and from tooth pick to set
OF furniture. There are jewelry stores
OF household utensils stores which handle
nothing but leather goods and other stores
which deal in books and pictures. The
merchant as rule are Russians IN long
coats with their pantaloons stuffed in their
boots and their hair chopped off ievsl with
the neck so that it forms sort OF a brush
as it hangs down from the crown. They
part this hair in the middle and they are
usually long bearded men of the Russian
type. They are shrewd dealers, but are
very suspicious of one anotner and go on
the principle that everything is fair in
trade. Some of them grow very wealthy
and some of the finest houses in Moscow
belong to the merchants. The mobiles
looked rather down on them until in recent
years and today the merchant class is not
as high as the official class in Russia.
They are very superstitious and believe in
signs and omens. Their hours of business
are from about in the morning until 5 il
the afternoon, and though they are as anx-
ious TO MAKE good trade as our mer-
chants they take more rest than we do and
they will not open their stores during the
holidays nor on Sundays. Everything is
closed in Russia on Sunday, and ST. Pc
tersburg and Moscow at this time look
much more like Boston than Paris. 1t is
interesting to watch one of these bazaar
merchants close up for the night. La the
first place he locks up everything in
the store and seals it shut. He then comes
outside and closes his windows and locks
the front doors of his shop with great
paddock. He then takes string aud ties
| the paddock to the staple and joins the two
ends of the string together and puts some
hot sealing WAX on them. This he stamps
with his own seal, so that it will be i'm
possible to open the lock without breaking
the seal. He. then stands il front of his
closed doors and crosses himself and says
la prayer before he leaves for the night,
and he will say another prayer when he
opens up in the morning. This is done by
every merchant and the crossing and seal
Ing OF these padlocks is going on all along
the arcades at the hour Of closing.
QUEER BUSINESS SIGNS.
The Russians do not advertise great
deal and Russian business advertise
ment looks queer to American eyes. There
are thirty -six letters in the Russian alpha
bet. aud these letters seem to be a comb-
nation of the Greek, Chinese and the
Arabic characters. A great majority of
the lower classes cannot read them and the
result is that it hardly pays the merchant
TO advertise You see few posters about
the cities and the sandwich man il absent