The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-04-11
RUSSIAN
WAR OFFICE
Where the Gar 5
Generals
Plan.
interesting Facts About
the Russian
People.
Even the Gar Is a Democratic
Fellow-Goes About With
out Escort.


ST. PETERSBURG, March S.-Front-
ing the long. silent Winter Palace
imperial in it's constant display of the
double eagle, scrolled black on the red
stone of the building and gilt on the
fence of iron railings-is a crescent OF
Government offices, their faces washed
in dull ochre, and almost as silent as
the yellow palace itself. 1t is from
one of these offices that Russia is pre-
pairing her land campaign in the Far
East.
Nobody goes out of his way to look
at the door. Generals in light gray
fur-lined cloaks pass in and out OF the
headquarters of the General Staff; uni
formed messengers fetch and carry
and Observation-Disclosures they
call them, the enormously Significant
element in the city-go their ways with
precise steps and pursed lips. clad in
black tight-buttoned coats and clasped
to their sides the inevitable leather
portfolio But the million or two civil
ians who make their living here take
no heed of it all.
Fifteen degrees below zero is not con-
ducive. it is true, to the comfort OF
a standing crowd, but the occupants
of the scores of sleighs which skim a.
cross the sunlit snow OF this govern
ment crescent, proceed as If the great
AFFAIRS preparing so near them were
somebody else's business. So 1t is at
the central telegraph Office. Last night,
when the allotted tabloid of official in
formation was served out to hunger
Ing world, there was apparently go ap-
petite. The typewriter telegram was
Il -.1< ft1rarrf nv
surging crowd to devour its contents
Messengers from the local newspapers
copied it and the foreign correspondents
got their translators to interpret it's
weird Slavonic characters. 1t is not
that Russian people are Indifferent to
what is going on, but rather that inn
memorial experience has taught them
that official information is something
prepared for their consumption, and
they have grown cynical.
When the great fighting is on they
may strike each other awake and be-
come vigiIant TO know what is going
on. Today they are jogging along the
accustomed track and the writer who
says otherwise is one with the scores
of correspondents who have come to this
country determined to make their read
ers' flesh creep when they get their
books published, and who have deiib-
erately set out to produce the effects
they know would tell, even though they
failed to find any material to justify
them.
In the street life of St. Petersburg
the dominant note is still the patriarch
al Sleigh driver and Grand Duke, they
are all family. Two officers go for
spin in a drosky down the Nevski
Prospelzt. They laugh and joke to-
gether; the driver sees an opening and
joins in the talk, and all three set to
laughing. He will do the same If he
is driving great ladies of the ruling
houses, and nobody dreams of resent
ing it. Feudalism, with it's inexpressi-
bic freemasonry, is behind it ALL The
owner of great estates would as soon
think OF cutting the greetings of
humble moujik, as centuries ago
feudaI Baron would reject the conversa-
ton of a retainer.
Rather the other way; for the patri-
clan element here counts 1t good form
to show a genial fellowship with its
coachmen. There is a rather terrible
side TO this sort of thing. Three able
bodied men will turn up at any mo-
ment to do some trifiing service to
man at hotel or in restaurant where
one OF more would suffice in another
".
their countryTnen they get them. Tt
really seems the old idea of scattering
largess among the populace at large
as a tribute to ones own loneliness. The
more a man of the noblernan cast looks
as If he could not afford it, the more
he insists on handing out tips to show
his station. even If he have to go hum
CRY at home.
BY this process about 10000 highly |
skilled 1oafers are doing very well in
St. Petersburg today. There is one who
keeps an eye on coats and hats at a
hotel near here who owns streets of
real estate in the suburbs and takes his
wife and family every summer to Trou- |
Vile for the season. In most directions
the proletarian Russian who lives in |
this capital displays a genuine aver |
sion TO systematic work of the artisan |
kind. The little sons of poor parents
nurse the ambition to be some day
droschke drivers. As there are over 49,
600 of these worthless licensed in St |
Petersburg, it is a considerable calling |
If the governmental system makes |
him the most absolute head of a State
in Christendom, the Gar is personally |
the least assuming monarch Imaginable. |
His children drive in pair-horse open
carriage down the Nevslxi with their
governess about o'clock every after
noon. Coachman and footman wear no
livery, merely the black hat and long
drab coat usual in private citizens
equipage. The Cars mother with hei
lady in waiting We're driving yesterday
In a pair-horse sleigh not distinguish
able from any other good turnout o.
for the great bearded Cossack standin
guard behind them. And the Dowagel
Czarinas by the habit of the counfry |
and the code of the Greek ORTHODOX |
t;nurch, comes before the Czarina in |