272 THRO UGH R US SI A ON A M US TA NG. 



equity, products of human industry from every quarter 

 of the globe. 



There is an impression abroad that, owing to the 

 development of the Russian railway system, the great 

 fair of Nijni Novgorod is no longer what it was. This 

 is true in one sense, but not in the sense that people 

 commonly accept the information. To the astonish- 

 ment of the Moscow merchants themselves, who fully 

 expected that the railways, by distributing merchan- 

 dise to all parts of the country, would reduce the 

 Nijni fair to an historical curiosity, merchants flock to 

 the place from every town in Russia and Siberia in 

 numbers as great as ever. The volume of business 

 was, in 1890, as large as it ever was. 



In Russia, as elsewhere, conservatism is apt to pre- 

 dict all manner of evil consequences to established 

 institutions by radical economic changes. The con- 

 servative merchants of Moscow and St. Petersburg saw 

 the collapse of the great institution of the Nijni fair 

 in Russian railway extension. But these conservative 

 merchants, in no way abashed by the discovery of 

 their own false reasoning, continue to come to Nijni 

 as of yore and to dispose of about the same quantity 

 of goods. 



The lesson they learned from the experience is that 

 improved transportation facilities, by cheapening goods 

 and placing them within easier reach of the people, 

 have simply brought about an increase in consumption 

 and demand. The merchant's pro rata profits have 

 been reduced in favor of the consumers by the new 

 order of things, but since he sells twice as many goods 

 as formerly, the results to him are in the end the same 



