oncord coach. Some one describes it as being a cross
between a cab and an instrument of torture. There is no rest for the
occupant's back; and while the seat is more than large enough for
one, it is not large enough for two persons. It is a sort of sledge
on wheels. The noise made by these low-running ugly conveyances as
they are hurried by the drivers over the uneven rubble-stones of the
streets is deafening. Why the Russians adhere so tenaciously to this
ill-conceived four-wheeled conveyance, we could not divine. It has no
special adaptability to the roads or streets of the country that we
could understand, while there are half-a-dozen European or American
substitutes combining comfort, economy, and comeliness, which might
be profitably adopted in its place. The legal charge for conveyance
in droskies is as moderate as is their accommodation, but a foreigner
is always charged three or four times the regular fare. The poor
ill-paid fellows who drive them form a distinct class, dressing all
alike, in a short bell-crowned hat, a padded blue-cloth surtout, or
wrapper, reaching to their feet and folded across the breast. This
garment is buttoned under the left arm with a row of six small,
close-set silver buttons, while a belt indicates where the waist
should be. These drivers are a miserably ignorant class, sleeping
doubled up on the front of the droskies night and day, when not
employed. The vehicle is at once their house and their bed, and if
one requires a drosky he first awakens the driver, who is usually
curled up asleep like a dog. It is the only home these poor fellows
have, in nine cases out of ten. The horses are changed at night after
a day's service, but the driver remains at his post day and night.
Unlike the reckless drivers of Paris, Naples, and New York, the
Russian rarely strikes his horse with the whip, but is apt to talk to
him incessantly,--"Go ahead! we are in a hurry, my infant;" or, "Take
care of that stone!" "Turn to the left, my pigeon!" and so on.

All St. Petersburg wear top-boots outside the pantaloons. Even
mechanics and common laborers adopt this style; but wherefore, except
that it is the fashion, one cannot conceive. The common people
universally wear red-cotton shirts hanging outside the pantaloons. It
was surprising to see gentlemen wearing overcoats in mid-summer, when
the temperature was such that Europeans would be perspiring freely
though clad in the thinnest vestment. In winter the Ru