212 PETERSBURG IN WINTER 



would never take the last ounce out of himself, except in a 

 race. No one could have been better served than Mr. Morton 

 ' was by Dalmeny and Martin. 



Life in Petersburg is very uninteresting to persons with 

 Western ideas. A system of mental drill governs all classes. 

 Officials, from Grand Dukes to railway porters, believe in 

 their Heaven-sent superiority, and the rest accept their 

 position of dirt. No ill - clad man or woman is allowed to 

 walk or non - commissioned officer to smoke in any of the 

 principal streets. No one is permitted to sing in the open, 

 and, as my wife remarked to me on hearing the roaring Orlof 

 trotters, horses are the only creatures that can whistle in the 

 streets without getting locked up. School children are put 

 into uniform almost before they can walk, they have all to 

 learn exactly the same things, and are brought up in exactly 

 the same way, with the result that originality is a scarce 

 virtue in that country. Well - to - do Russians go in for 

 physical culture as little as they do for riding, and the two 

 or three gymnastic clubs in Petersburg are patronised almost 

 solely by Germans. The Russian indoor, mollycoddling 

 style of life appears to have a bad effect even on the 

 foreigners that sojourn in that country ; for the lads at a 

 German gymnasium I visited were very puny and anaemic 

 representatives of their great Fatherland. If we want to 

 see fine specimens of German manhood, we need only go to 

 the Turnhalle in St. Pancras Roacl, King's Cross. 



I never met with a trace of enmity against the English 

 either among Russian officials or people. While I was at 

 the Brigades, the officers often asked me questions about 

 our army, and especially about the pay, which was the chief 

 subject that interested them. I never heard a disparaging 

 remark from them regarding our men, except from Rotmistr 

 Heppener of Liski, who insisted that our soldiers were 

 mercenaries ; because, instead of getting like the Russian 



