96 THIRD TRIP TO RUSSIA 



Petersburg to the frontier at Wirballen are generally un- 

 comfortably crowded, and a sleeping-car berth is necessary 

 for repose at night. Unfortunately the supply of these 

 luxuries is so narrowly limited on this line, that places have 

 to be secured several days in advance. All the first and 

 second class carriages are on the corridor plan, and frequent 

 halts are made en route at wayside restaurants for food and 

 drink ; because no dining-car carriage is attached to any 

 train. From Eydtkunen, which is the German frontier town 

 and' is about five miles from Wirballen, there is ample 

 sleeping-car accommodation, and the second-class carriages 

 leave nothing to be desired. The way to combine comfort and 

 economy when travelling between Petersburg and Flushing, 

 is to go second class and take a sleeping-car berth, by which 

 one escapes the ordinary Russian second-class carriages. 

 The Flushing route, either to or from London, is to be pre- 

 ferred to that of the Hook of Holland ; because the Dutch 

 trains run in connection with the steamers at Flushing, but 

 not with those at the Hook. 



I like Berlin for the beer one can get there, especially 

 when that drink takes the form of Dortmund Union Bier. 

 Except at good hotels and high-class restaurants, it is most 

 difficult for a wayfarer in England to get a glass of beer 

 worth drinking ; a fact which is no doubt due to the legalised 

 tyranny of English brewers, combined with the stupid 

 ignorance of the temperance party. This ill-assorted con- 

 federation are unfortunately strong enough to restrict the 

 number of public-houses and beer-shops, almost all of which 

 are consequently converted into "tied houses," whose 

 occupants are forced to sell what the brewers choose to give 

 them. The idea that a man living in a street in which 

 there was a large percentage of beer - shops, would drink 

 more than if he resided in a street having a small percentage 

 of these useful places of call, is as reasonable as the notion 



