The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1914-09-04
PRINCIPAL STREET. IRkUT5k

house with nothing going on most OF
the time, q government gold labora-
tory, barracks by the. score, several
banks and breweries and monasterles
and jails, fine museum with an alert
educational programme Of lectures,
and so forth, a very few factories, sew
eral tanneries and a major in caVal-
ry regiment who weighs 81 stone,
which is just short of a quarter OF
ton-a blithesome boy who can prob
ably ride gun carriage with the most
reckless of EN-.
Of the Irkutskians Gmelin wrote:
Ills aiment rexces poisivite, le vim ct
les femmes'-not till he got out OF
town, though. I'm still in Irkutsk, at
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 At
2 o'clock in the afternoon the sunny
sides of the street were deserted foS
the shade, where it was only 81 de-
grees Fahrenheit! A ie-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 morning, and you linger over
your drinks and Crimean cigarettes
till or o'clock, listening to the or
chestras 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 I'M
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 a 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
application, till he appears. Mold
and manure stained earthenpots,
standing in water-logged saucers, hold
the rooted once-we-were-howers on
your table. Argumentative canarles
and vainly shriil linnets trilling from
a dozen cages drive you nearly silly.
Yet the food is excellent and the wait
ers models of their genus, apart from
a lamentable tendency to snatch the
fork from your plate wherewith to
pry the cork from a bottle OF wine.
Few men care to saunter about lrk-
utsk after dark without a Browning
in a handy pocket. The first time
came to this town I was assured that
there was at least murder on the
streets every four-and-twenty hours,
with considerably more some nice,
warm nights, when 1t was a-pity-to-be-
indoors-don 't-you-know. doubted the
fact till came back subsequently and
verified it. And now, this spring, af-
ter an absence of three years, find
yesperal murders more popular than
ever Nasty, uncomfortable murders,
quiet murders in the dark by gentle
men who haven't a thing against you,
but need a spare shirt, or merely want
to Keep IN SOOu IIdluiuS. AA0lo olO
no street lamps half mile from the
heart of this metropolis. That helps,
too.
The lazy and inartistic spirits mere
ly side up in felt slippers and sand
bag or club you. The real union muir
derers are garroters. Even as Tomsk
is the educational and cultural centre
of Siberia, Irkutsk is every ambitious
young provincial garroter's goal. 1t
is a high honor to be in with the gar
roting Four Hundred of this town, the
aristocracy of homicide. Squatting
low on their heels, they lurk in the
gutter at the sound of your approach
ing steps till you appear close by. sill
houetted against the starlight Then
the hide lasso is neatly cast over your
head: swiftly and silently you are
choked to death. Or partnership of
three will operate. Two chase you.
At the crescendoing sound Of rushing
footballs the third man draws rope
taut across the street. You trip and
fall headIong. Before you are up again
yo, are knitted in the back.