The St. Mary banner. (Franklin, Parish of St. Mary, La.) 1889-1931, 1914-09-19
PRINCIPAL STREET IRkUT5k'

contained, in addition to stove and
bathroom, "une chambre sans fumee
GU en- Sc tient Ell famille,' which Il
more than one can say nowadays. In
1903 the whole of Siberia was placed
under the administration OF COVER
nor general, with d residence at lrk'
utsk. Today the city has cathe.
dral-Our Lady of Kazan-thirty-tw
Orthodox Greek churches. sixteen par,
ish churches, thirty-five private chap
els attached to residences, some rom
an Catholic churches, a German Eu'
theran church, forty-nine schools, eigh'
teen charitable institutions. an opera
house with nothing going on most OF
the time, a government gold laDora
tory. barracks by the score, several
banks and breweries and monasterlel
and jails. fine museum with an alert
educational programme of lectures.
and so forth, very few factories, sew
eral tanneries and a major In caval
ry regiment who weighs stone,
which is just short of quarter OF
ton-a blithesome boy who can prob
ably ride gun carriage with the mosN
reckless Of EN-.
OF the Irkutskians Gmelin wrote:
Ills aiment Iexces Ioisivite. lie win ct
les femmes' -not till he got out o.
town. though. I'm still in lrkutsk, al
the mercy Of the mob, so wait awhile.
Late Dinner Hour.
An odd city, this. At 6 O'Clock this
morning frost gripped the ground. Az
2 o'clock in the afternoon the sunny
sides Of the street were deserted for
the shade, where it was only 81 de,
grees Fahrenheit! A lie-abed town.
No one appears on the streets till at
ter 10 o'clock in the morning. Early
lunchers begin to drop into the res
taurants about 2 o'clock. The dinner
hour Is from 10 at night till O'Clock
in the mora1pg, and you linger over
your drinks and Crimean cigarettes
till or o'clock, listening to the or
chestra or moving from table to table
to chat with your friends.
The chief restaurant in town, the
resort of the creme de la creme OF
wealth and smartness, offers not un.
interesting glimpses. 1t Is quite good
form, for instance, to enter the crowd
ed room vigorously scraping your hair
and mustachios and whiskers and
beard with large and greasy comb
None of the lunchers through whom
you thus thread your way are squeam-
ish enough to push away their soup
plates from your scurf strewn wake.
Wanting waiter, you bang your plate
with a knife, DANGEROUSLY and with
till he appears. Mold
and manure stained earthenpots.
in water-logged saucers. hold
the rooted oncewe-werefowers on
your table. Argumentative canaries
and vainly shrill linnets trilling from
q dozen cages drive you nearly silly.
Yet the food is excellent and the wait
ers models Of their genus, apart from
= lamentable tendency to snatch the
fork from your plate wherewith to
pry the cork from q bottle of wine.
Few men care to saunter about Irk-
itek after dark without q Browning
n a handy pocket. The first time
zane to this town was assured that
here was at least murder on the
streets every four-and-twenty hours.
With considerably more some nice.
warm nights. when 1t was a-pity-tobe-
ndoors-don't -you-know. l doubted the
act till came back subsequently and
'erifed it. And now, this spring, at.
er an, absence OF three years. l find
'esperal murders more popular than
ver. Nasty, uncomfortable murders,
uiet murders in the dark by gentle |
nen who haven't q thing against you.
nut need a spare shirt, or merely want |
o keep in good training. There are
% street lamps half a mile from the
cart Of this metropolis. That helps. |
90.
The lazy and inartistic spirits mere
7 side up In felt slippers and sand
az or club you. The real union MUIR
erers are garroters. Even as Tomsk
J the educational and cultural centre
Siberia, Irkutsk Is every ambitious
Dung provincial garroter's goal.