The second striking circumstance referred to is the curious custom, designed, apparently, for the convenience of an uneducated population, of hanging outside the shops enormous pictures representing the wares which are procurable within. Thus the baker displays large posters upon which the cunning artist has depicted clusters of tempting rolls; a dish of cakes piled up in great profusion, and colored with the most lavish disregard for expense; and mounted by three figures (representing | support themselves upon the darling Hope, Faith, and Charity), is the En-vice of the country; they abound glish Church. This quay runs up as throughout the town; here and there far as the Admiralty gardens, where the stranger may count two or three it merges into the Palace Quay, the within a few yards. These drinkingfirst building upon which magnificent shops are of all grades, and to accomembankment is the Winter Palace. modate all classes; they range from the Beyond this lie miles of palaces all dark and grimy and evil-smelling Kabak overlooking the Neva, and stretching of the slums, to the stately Pogreb of in an unbroken line to the Liteynaya the Nefsky Prospect. St. Petersburg bridge. Beyond this, again, are the is evidently not a stronghold of teetograin wharves; St. Petersburg being a talism. far more important centre for the shipment of all kinds of grain, both to this country and the Continent, than the uninitiated are aware of. Such, briefly, is the right bank of the Neva. On his left hand the tourist, sailing up the river from Cronstadt, will first observe the busy workshops and wharves of Chekooshi; this is the outer portion of the island of Vassili Ostrof, which forms a considerable proportion of the whole town. It is connected with the mainland by the Nicholai bridge, afore-a loaf or two of black bread modestly mentioned. The majority of the nu- concealing its humble personality in merous British residents live in this the background. The butcher, again, same Vassili Ostrof, which can boast hangs out the counterfeit presentment of including among its public buildings, of an animal, intended by the artist to the University, the Exchange, the represent a bull in a pasture field; the Academy of Arts, and other important terrible animal is apparently filled with edifices. Opposite the Winter Palace sinister intentions, directed against is the fortress, whose tall and delicate nothing in particular, head down, tail golden spire I have already mentioned. up, evidently in the very act of charging, From the Alexander gardens, which but, for all its truculent mien, with the lie behind the Winter Palace, the far- mildest of faces and quite a benevolent famed Nefsky Prospect commences its expression which says as plain as words: long diagonal course to the monastery," Don't be afraid, my dears, I wouldn't many miles away; the whole of its hurt a fly; it's only my way." The length, as far as the Moscow railway trader who deals in all sorts of linen station, forming one imposing line of clothing reveals the facsimile of these palaces and magnificent shops-the without regard to the modesty of the great width of this fine street adding immensely to the general effect. The houses are built mostly in four or five stories, and are let, excepting in the case of the very wealthy classes, who sometimes occupy a whole house, in flats. At least two circumstances will probably strike the tourist promenading the streets of St. Petersburg for the first time as being peculiar and remarkable: one is, the amazing number of drinkingshops which are able, presumably, to public; while every little jeweller displays the portraits of golden and jewelled wares such as, did he really possess their actual counterpart, would enable him to ransom every crowned head in Europe if he were desirous of doing this kindness to royalty in distress. The drinking-shop generally presents an extremely realistic poster, showing, besides mugs of impossibly. frothy beer and porter creaming up in a manner to tempt the austerest of abstainers, the portrait of an uproariously happy moujik engaged, presumably, in | pious profusion throughout the city, singing, as moujiks love to do, over his may be seen other domes and spires ; vodka, with enough liquor arranged some golden, like St. Isaac's, some around him, in bottles and decanters of bright blue, others green, yellow, and all sizes and shapes, to keep him sing- all the colors of the rainbow. In the ing for a fortnight. In a word, each midst of all, winding in and out, like a shop, excepting those whose customers silver ribbon, flow the white waters of are derived from the aristocracy alone, the Neva, that beautiful river, covered adopts this simple method of making with steamers and ships of all nationknown to the public the nature of arti- alities, and with the high-prowed, cles which may be had for a reasonable gaudily painted yahliks, or ferry-boats equivalent within. The tourist should peculiar to the country. Clean and bear in mind that on entering a Russian sweet, it hastens down between its. shop, however humble, dirty, or stuffy granite embankments towards the Gulf that shop may be, he is expected to of Finland; it is indeed a beautiful remove his hat; and that great offence | river and it flows through a beautiful will be given if he neglects to perform city! Long may it run its short course this accustomed act of courtesy. from Ladoga to the gulf! and even as its waters wash smooth, as they pass, the granite quay in front of the Winter Palace, so, let all the many well-wishers of Russia devoutly hope and trust, may be smoothed away, in the fulness of time, the unhappy differences between the czar and his people! then shall the river flow through the midst of a contented and happy city, the beautiful metropolis of a contented and happy people. From The Speaker. FROM A SUFFOLK VILLAGE. As I do not propose to give an exhaustive description of the town of St. Petersburg, but merely the barest of sketches of a few of the types of its inhabitants and their surroundings, I will now draw a curtain over the scene. | But let us take one last glimpse, ere the curtain falls, in order to carry away a general idea of the aspect of the city as it would appear if represented in an instantaneous photograph. There it lies, before our mind's eye, with its great, wide, cobble-paved streets, along which the Lihatch is dashing, and poor vagabond Vainka is forever crawling in an endless procession from morn till night! Huge stuccoed houses tower I WALKED down the village street in long, stately lines down both sides to-day. The red roofs of the irregular, of the roadways; some are painted clustering houses, the brick tower of bright yellow, some a pale blue; green the church, the thick yew, and the is a favorite color, and some are a daz- sluggish stream were touched and transzling white; while along the pavement figured by the level light of the sun that below there flows a ceaseless stream of was sinking in a clear orange glow. semi-eastern figures, varied by the ad- The trees stood out against the mellow mixture of many uniforms, military and radiance as black as in the heart of civil, and, for St. Petersburg is a cos- winter, although now, in February, the mopolitan town, many European cos- rising sap is giving warm tints to the tumes. The small, sworded gorodovoy leafless boughs-purple to the beeches, stands, like a dirty, little, dignified doll, deep red to the limes, and pinkish grey at the door of his bootka, or hut; and to the oaks. Everywhere there are the dvornik sits contentedly upon the those subtle signs of the turn and bench outside his front gate and plays change in the year which are impercephis garmonka to a small and select party | tible to a townsman, but very definite to of personal friends. In the distance, St. Isaac's is flashing its gold rays like a dome of fire, while here, there, and everywhere, scattered in wonderful and those who, like myself, live tête-à-tête with the weather. The color is day by day coming back to the slopes of faded winter grass; there are little orange balls of blossom on the yews, and tiny | knowledged, "that I did miss, and that crimson dots on the hazel boughs, from were spots. I were as gay as a leopard which the mealy catkins hang. Little when I had the scarlet fever some years birds fly in pairs in the hedgerows, back, but none come this time." where, until only a fortnight or so ago, they consorted in great flocks. Woodpigeons coo serenely in the beeches, and the larks sing above the uplands. Her old husband, whose face is like the full moon and is always decorated with a cheerful grin, had experiences of his own to impart. He suffers as a general rule from the rheumatics and In the village, people are beginning to recover from the influenza. They the "browntitus "—both of which, as have passed the sick stage and the his wife parenthetically remarks, are feverish stage, and now are very weak "hypocrite complaints but now and woebegone. In a little side lane these have given place to other and (I that leads to a pasture, which a little hope) rarer symptoms. Yesterday, later in the year will be all aflame among other things, he "fared to have with marsh marigolds, live the old a sinking feeling" in the very centre couple I went to visit. The tiny garden of his stomach. He wished to have in front where the aconites are pushing some rich beef tea and get it to stick up through the mould - little yellow there, just in that one spot. I had heads with a frill round each like Toby's brought him the rich beef tea, but, ruff is decorated with a pattern of alas! could not provide any mechanism sea-shells, and the battered figure-head towards getting it to stick ; which disapof a ship, that recalls the presence of pointed Mr. Flowde, whose faith in the the salt estuary only four miles away, powers of medical science is unbounded. where vessels come up with the fresh- The little living-room is comfortably smelling tide. The two old people were furnished; there is an upright eightsitting dully over their fire. They were day clock" with a beautiful strike," and glad of a visitor. Mrs. Flowde, an old a handsome corner cupboard, in which lady with the inquiring glance of a mag-treasures of sprigged cups and plates pie, and the taste in dress of a parro- are immured. On the mantelpiece are quet, expounded to me her views on infection. "God will send this complaint to every one that shuns them that is ill with it," she said. I hinted that this was not the usually received opinion, but she was firm. She intimated darkly that Mrs. Villiers (one of the ladies in our village) was doomed, as she had not been to see two photographs. One is of the old couple's son, standing with his legs crossed so as to make a kind of pattern with them, and a rustic table beside him. The other is of their grandchild, a creature with corkscrew ringlets and a swollen face. But these represent all "He have spared you and yours,' ," the love and romance that has ever she went on severely, "because you brightened the sluggish monotony of have visited the sick-and you ought the old people's lives. About these to be thankful." they weave many brilliant imaginations and dream many beautiful dreams. They form the one link that binds them to the great world of London, the turmoil and thunder of which does not yet reach these quiet pastures seventy miles away. But the old Flowdes have given a precious pledge, in the shape of their son, to all-devouring London, and feel that they have a part in the stir and life of the great city which they have never seen, and speak of somewhat as the people in fairy stories speak of the Palace of the Ogre. There is no life so poor and mean but the golden ... her, She then gave me a very minute account of her illness, not sparing me single harrowing detail. a "There were one thing," she ac thread of imagination runs somewhere in London. The school-children were through it, and these old people have still busy "catching their deaths" in their full share of the shining web. the stream, carrying out Locke's preTheir life has been a hard one. Mr. cept that children should always be Flowde invested his little savings in a friendly society, which broke. The manager, as Mr. Flowde explains, with unconscious irony, took the money to make a gentleman of himself." So the old people must still work for their living. Mr. Flowde is a jobbing gardener; or, rather, I should say, on the strength of having been once at some remote period spade-man at the Hall gardens, he feels himself qualified to dig your borders and slice your flower-roots as remorsely as any man alive. He also scratches and rolls your gravel to very slow music, and will spread what he admiringly. calls "the best o' muck" upon the roots of your rose-trees. It was dusk when I left the cottage; the symptoms took so long to describe, and there was a letter to be read "that come yesterday morn" from the son wet-shod with as much precision as THE ENGLISH SPEAKERS OF THE who are estimated to have been using these WORLD. - In a conversation with Döllinger seven languages in the year 1801, the Enshortly before his last illness, Professor glish speakers were less than 13 per cent., True, of Rochester University, New En- while the Spanish were 16, the Germans gland, reports that the venerable doctor 18'4, the Russians 18'9, and the French 19'6. spoke with much anxiety about the tone of This aggregate population has now grown to modern English literature. He explained 400,000,000, of which the English-speaking his anxiety by expressing his belief that at people number close upon 125,000,000. no distant time the English tongue would From 13 per cent. we have advanced to 31 be pre-eminently the language of all civ- per cent. The French speech is now used ilized nations. The greatest works of En- by 50,000,000 people, the German by about glish literature were worthy of being ever 70,000,000, the Spanish by 40,000,000, the popular. From a German, this opinion Russian by 70,000,000, the Italian by about about the spread of the English tongue was 30,000,000, and the Portuguese by about full of interest. It is computed that at the 13,000,000. The English language is now opening of the present century there were used by nearly twice as many people as any about 21,000,000 people who spoke the En- of the others, and this relative growth is glish tongue. The French-speaking people almost sure to continue. English has taken at that time numbered about 31,500,000, as its own the North American Continent, and the Germans exceeded 30,000,000. The and nearly the whole of Australasia. North Russian tongue was spoken by nearly America alone will soon have 100,000,000 of 31,000,000, and the Spanish by more than English-speaking people, while there are 26,000,000. Even the Italian had three- 40,000,000 in Great Britain and Ireland. In fourths as large a constituency as the En-South Africa and India also the language is glish, and the Portuguese three-eighths. vastly extending. Of the 162,000,000 people, or thereabouts, Leisure Hour. For EIGHT DOLLARS remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. 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