that in the course of time those long, new, straggling streets, without
an inhabited hinterland, which at present try so severely the springs of
the ricketty droshkis, will be properly paved and kept in decent repair.
For my own part, I confess I am a little sceptical with regard to this
prediction, and I can only use a favourite expression of the Russian
peasants--dai Bog! God grant it may be so!

It is but fair to state that in one celebrated instance neither
engineers nor railway contractors were directly to blame. From St.
Petersburg to Moscow the locomotive runs for a distance of 400 miles
almost as "the crow" is supposed to fly, turning neither to the right
hand nor to the left. For twelve weary hours the passenger in the
express train looks out on forest and morass, and rarely catches sight
of human habitation. Only once he perceives in the distance what may be
called a town; it is Tver which has been thus favoured, not because it
is a place of importance, but simply because it happened to be near
the bee-line. And why was the railway constructed in this extraordinary
fashion? For the best of all reasons--because the Tsar so ordered it.
When the preliminary survey was being made, Nicholas I. learned that the
officers entrusted with the task--and the Minister of Ways and Roads
in the number--were being influenced more by personal than technical
considerations, and he determined to cut the Gordian knot in true
Imperial style. When the Minister laid before him the map with the
intention of explaining the proposed route, he took a ruler, drew a
straight line from the one terminus to the other, and remarked in a tone
that precluded all discussion, "You will construct the line so!" And
the line was so constructed--remaining to all future ages, like St.
Petersburg and the Pyramids, a magnificent monument of autocratic power.

Formerly this well-known incident was often cited in whispered