er, or the well-to-do merchant.
The aristocracy amuse themselves very much in the same way as our
own. They shoot, they loaf and play cards in their clubs, they
butcher pigeons out of traps, they have their race-meetings, they
dance much and well; some have yachts of their own. Many of them
keep English grooms, and their English--when they speak it--for
this reason smacks somewhat of the stable, though they are not
usually aware that this is the case. If a Russian autocrat has
succeeded in making himself look like an Englishman, and behaves
like one, he is happy.

Of winter sports--in which, however, but a small minority of the
Russian youth care to take part--there are skating, ice-yatching,
snow-shoeing, and ice-hilling. The skating ought, naturally, to be
very good in Russia. As a matter of fact the ice is generally dead
and lacking in that elasticity and spring which is characteristic
of our English ice. It is too thick for elasticity, though the
surface is beautifully kept and scientifically treated with a view
to skating wherever a space is flooded or an acre or two of the
Neva's broad bosom is reclaimed to make a skating-ground. Some
of the Russian amateurs skate marvellously, as also do many of
the English and other foreign residents. Ice-yachting is confined
almost entirely to these latter, the natives not having as yet
awakened to the merits of this fine pastime. Ice-hilling, however,
at fair-time--that is, during the carnival week, preceding the
"long fast" or Lent--is much practised by the people. This is a
kind of cross between the switchback and tobogganing, and is an
exceedingly popular amusement among the English residents of St.
Petersburg.

Snow-shoeing, again, is a fine and healthful recreation; it is
the "ski"-running of Norway, and is beloved and much practised by
all Englishmen who are fortunate enough to be introduced to its
fascinations. It is too difficult and requires too much exertion,
however, for young Russia, and that indolent individual, in consequence,
rarely dons the snow-shoe.

The Russians are a theatre-loving people, and the acting must be
very good to please their critical taste. Many of their theatres
are "imperial," that is, the state "pays the piper" if the receipts
of the theatre so protected do not balance the expenditure. In
paying for good artists, whether operatic or dramatic, the Russians
are most lavish, and the Imperial Italian Opera must have been a
source of consid