PETROGRAD PICTURES

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2742, 10 April 1916, Page 3

PETROGRAD PICTURES

BRIGHT PEN SKETCHES

Writing from Petrograd to tho Christcliurcli "Press" Eva Morgan Just now women are taking the placo of men as tram conductors, 'fins is a complication as regards space, for they are most amazingly stout, coverod as they are with layers of thiclc garments to keep out the cold. 1 was once carried long past my station, though I started trying to _ get past the conductress in good time, bhe blocked tho exit, and squeeze past her I could not, in spite_ of much assistance from people behind me who also wished to get out. At the next station a giant peasant propelled the conductress on to the platform, and I slipped out in his wake. One gets unexpected information in Petrograd sometimes. Seeing an advertisement in a newspaper that scenes from New Zealand wore to be shown at a certain cinema, I, naturally, feeling the Call of the Wild, went to that cinema prepared to be thrilled by the shadows of my native land ; And I was not disappointed of thrills, though they were not of the kind expected. I gazed with indignation at a street in New Zealand, where peasants in large starched white caps, with broad trills, and with skirts turned up over quilted petticoats, sold in fancy baskets to imaginary inhabitants in a fictitious market-place. That film liad never seen New Zealand! —but I had the joke, or the tragedy, to myself. I did not trouble to explain to my companion that there were no peasants in New Zealand, and no _ marketplace where potatoes were sold in pretty baskets. No one ever explains anything in Russia, so why should I? The reason why explanations are not usual_ is that, as a rule, they are impossible. A ltd the Russians, like wise neople, hover attempt tho impossible/ Indeed, . one is. surprised when they attempt the 1 possible. There is something in_ the 1 climate that makes for colossal laziness. 1 When the thermometer stands at _ SO degrees below zero one feels like hibernating until it goes up again. Russian women until twelve or one o'clock 1 every morning, but they are never in , bed before midnight, and generally very | much later. It requires a great, effort to take a walk in Petrograd just now. One is weighed down by fur coats and [ knitted garments, and one has to walk delicately in snow-boots on slippery ' streets. If or.o takes a sledge one must ! be careful to shield one's face from the i air, which cuts like a knife as it rushes " past. But every true Russiau will tell 1 you he loves winter. When the thermometer is 20 degrees' below zero lie is in 3 his element. The -cold which killed off 1 Napoleon's Army in 1812 seems likely 1 this winter to fight Russia's battles ' again for her. And one would be scarcei ly human if one did not pity even enemy 3 soldiers in the trenches just .now, 3 : . : L