It may easily be supposed that St. Petersburg has to pay dearly enough for these wretched wooden bridges. The constant demolition and reconstruction soon wear the wood out, and the boards at the top are quicklj'
worn to dust by the carnages incessantly passing across. It is not at all impossible that the Isaac's Bridge, durinir the short period of its existence, has cost more than the massive bridge of Dresden during the three hundred years that have elapsed since it was built.
"When in its bridgeless condition, the city feels itself at all times very uncomfortable. St. Petersburg may then be said to be divided into as many towns as there are islands ; relations can learn as little from each other for days together, as if an ocean divided them instead of a river ; the public officers can receive no orders from the central administration, and must act on their own judgment and responsibility ; merchants cannot confer together, bills cannot be presented, teachers cannot give their lessons, guests cannot join the festive board, and the isvoshtshiks can circulate only within a limited range. Business and pleasure are alike interrupted, and every one longs to be delivered from what is felt as a species of imprisonment The consequence is, that in autumn, when the icy covering is yet in the weakness of its infancy, and in spring, when it begins to fall into the decrepitude of age, a number of contrivances are had recourse to, in order to strengthen it. The very moment the ice stands, straw roads are laid in every direction over the still disjoined fragments ; and in spring, boards are laid over the dangerous places, as long as the police will allow these supplementary bridges to be used. When the authorities consider the time is come to prohibit all passage across the ice, policemen are stationed every where along the sides of the river, to enforce the prohibition. The messages to be carried across are, however, sometimes of such importance, and the rewards offered so great, that the Russian mushiks often venture across, in defiance of the police, even when the ice is on the move. The adventurous messenger, on such occasions, armed only with a deal board, may be seen dexterously crossing from one piece of ice to another, to the great amusement of the spectators on the quays, and generally he escapes, not only the dangers of the passage, but also the more dreaded dangers to be apprehended from the gendarmes waiting for him on the shore. Sometimes, of course, these hazardous attempts are attended by fatal consequences, and every year the Neva is sure to swallow up her allotted number of victims ; indeed, it may be doubted whether there is another city in the world, where so many people are yearly di'owned, as at St. Petersburg.
It is melancholy to think of the fate probably reserved for this beautiful youthful city, with all its splendid creations. There are cities in the world of which a large portion might be destroyed to their manifest advantage ; but in the new and cheerful St. Petersburg, every act of destruction, whether by the hand of nature or of man, seems calculated to awaken sorrow and regret. Yet such are the destructive powers by wliich its existence is threatened, that no other city probably lives in such constant and imminent peril.
Tlie Dresden Bridge, kno^^'n to the inhabitants under the name of the Elbe Bridge, is 1420 feet long, or 200 feet longer than Waterloo Bridge. The Elbe Bridge is considered the finest and longest structure of the kind in (Germany. It rests on sixteen arches, is thirty-six feet in width, and has a foot pavement and an iron balustrade on each side. On the centre pier stands a bronze crucifix, with an inscription in commemoration of the partial destruction of the bridge in 1813, to facilitate the retreat of the French uuder Marshal Davoust, and of its restoration by the EmiKTor Alexander.