Norwich bulletin., 1914-12-04

rograd is easily the nrst city of the empire.
 ing center of the empire. A great part l of the products of Europe which md their way to the bleak northern plain 1 are entered at the mouth of the Neva, l and this despite the fact that the port is ice bound i've months of the year. 1t has, too, some industry, though its region is not rich in any of the raw materials of industry. Some POO, 900 of its ErrcsG and women are em- ployed in manufacture, in the ma chine and iron works, in the ship yarcsa in cloth factories, shoe fac- tories. and cigarette factories, that stand on the outskirts of the city, around the Finland Station.
 There is a certain stern beauty in the capital The broad, arrow like :Neyshy Prospect IS fully as interest ing as any of the worlds famous thor oughtfares. It is a business street, some three miles longs lined with shops of average appearance, churches representing Greek, Protestant and Catholic religions. bank buildings, the a garden, and some dark red palaces The remarkably diversified life of the empire flows in a never ending stream along this avenue. Upon 1t may De seen the military; members of the capitals student corps of ten thous- and or more, from every government, the Finn. Lap. Little Russian, Tartar. Lithuanian Pole, and so on; the gov ernment clerk, and members of Rus sia's highest nobility.
 "Calais, which has recently had a world wide military prominence thrust upon 1t has been passed, almost un- suspected. by thousands of tourists, who have given it mere chance con- sideration as necessary part of the transition form London to Paris. There is no amusement to speak of in Calais; there are few imposing build ings, and only occasional unheralded relics of the achievement, effort and romance of the past. But Calais is an important port, a tourists threshold, 8 drab and earnest industrial city, continental Europe's harbor to Eng land, a vital key in naval Channel maneuYers, the seat of an American consulate which in normal times watches over a huge French-American business, and one of the four great est machine-made lace cities of the world. It is as a center of manufac- tured laces that Calais in peace times is most widely noted.
 Calais is lace town. Almost ev- erything about it has some bearing upon the f1lny, delicate webbing which 1t makes and distributes over the world. Should a tourist miss his Paris express-a thing by the way. which Is
  connections are excellent-and find himself forced to spend some hours in the city, the first thing he remarks is that there seems to be a dozen or more women to every man upon the streets. While, of course, the relative disproportion Is nowhere near so great, still girls and women do largely outnumber the men, as the lace indus try is continually drawing them from the surrounding country to its fac- | k,,e1 l low, and many of it's operations can be performed as well by young girls as
 by men.
 "The loiterer next notices lace signs everywhere, upon commission houses and factories Generally, these signs German and English. In spring anc
 autumn, he will meet a continual
 stream of his countrymen, buyers fol
 the big importing houses.
 "Of his own free will, however, the l traveller seldom stays. He is always
 willing to leave Calais for most any
 where. There are plenty of self-cen.
 tered. serious, hustling business towns at home, and there is no occasion fol
 enduring the monotonous twentieth
 century atmosphere when one is on z pleasure trip. There are, nevertheless many things worth seeing in the flat | dingy, strictly practical port city Il Visits to the great lace factories arr
 well worth while. and usually give on' a new reverence for the possibilities O
 intricate patterns mingled in a foan
 wave of exquisite lace, possibly of sev
 eral colors, with gold and silve
 threads, and all this done by a mas sive. complicated piece of machinery
 at one end devouring thousands O
 thread strands and at the other, giv ing forth a. lace equal to the highes cunning of the human hand, is to wit ness almost the perfection of man | inventive genius. And, then, this piec of machinery operates automatically
 much like the player-piano.
 Calais shares with Nottingham l England, the honors for the manufac ture of maehine-woVen laces. Tn other two leading lace towns mak | what are known as the embroidere l and 'Tburnt out" laces, on entirely diff } ferent machines. Calais smuggled 1t } added to the original English process es and machinery enough to be in DO
 sition to claim a perfection of it's owI
 Aside from, and beyond it's momentar
 military interest, Calais has the Iiveli est interest for the person wtde-awak to present-day marvels, as a worl center of lace production where all tn
 famed handmade lace genre are i'm ] itated on machines"
 OstroIenka-A town of Russian Pc land, on the left bank of the Narel 7 River, 5S miles west of north of War saw, g miles south of west of Long;
 and 25 miles from the Prussian boT . der. The town is situated in marsh
 region, with high wooded hills on th west. It is modern in most respect , and has shown a healthy rate of in
 crease in population in the last tw
 decades. Its inhabitants, a large DOT } tion of whom are Jews, number clos 5 to 10000. 4 Russian corps suffered severe losses in an action with Frenc { here in February 1906, and the plac was the scene of the violent encounte between the Russians and Poles in 1S3 The manufacture of cloth is the prir . cipla industry.
 : Stry--A GaIician town, well fort fled, 40 miles south of Lemberg, on th l. left bank of the river Stry. The SUI ! rounding country is mountainous an ! woody, and agricultuore Is much neg D lected, apples and flax being the chic f products from thIs source The tow , produces lumber. leather, matches an
 salt. The place has taken on renewe . activity in the last 25 years, durin n which time its population, which 3 now about 25.oeo, has more than dor !. bled. Skete-An Austrian town. 2t mile ] southwest of Stry and 5s miles soui ! of aherer inc OrNV- River fT7