Without pausing to comment on a scene so illustrative of the influence which the sovereign exercises over the minds of the Russian people, let us enter the market itself, and examine the unwashed throng, by which it is filled to such a degree that the poHce have some trouble to keep a passage clear in the centre for the equipages constantly coming and going. On one side of tliis passage stand the sellers of hay, wood, and, in spring, of plants and shrubs. On the other side are the peasants with their stores of meat, fish, butter and vegetables. Between these two rows are the sledges and equipages whose owners come to make the daily purchases, and depart laden with herbs and vegetables, the bleeding necks of the poidtiy often presenting a singular contrast to the brilhant carriages from whose vmidows they are Hstlessly dangling. Along the fi-onts of the houses, meanwhile, are arrayed the dealers in quass and pastry, together with the beer and tea stalls, at which the peasants never fail to expend a portion of their gain.
The stables of St. Petersburg contain seldom less than from 30,000 to 40,000 horses, without including those of the garrison. The animal wants of some 50,000 or 60,000 horses have therefore daily to be provided for, a larger number, probably, in proportion to its extent, than in any other Eiu'opean metropolis. The consumption of hay, accordingly, is enormous. In summer, whole fleets, laden with mountains of hay, come floating down the Neva ; and in winter, caravans of hay sledges defile through the streets, and are drawn up in squadrons and regiments along the sides of the Senna'ia Ploshtshod. Some of the hay is sold wholesale by the load, but the greater part is spread out on the ground and made up into small parcels to suit the convenience of the isvoshtshiks. Poor women and children may constantly be seen hovering about, to pick up the few blades that lie scattered about, and as soon as they have collected their little harvest they run off to a neighbouring street, where they dispose of their gleanings to some loitering isvoshtshik, from whom in return they obtain the means of providing a mouthful for themselves.
The sledges, after bringing the various commodities to market, serve their owners as stalls and counters. The matting thrown aside allows the poultry and meat to be arranged in a picturesque manner to catch the eye of the passing stranger. The geese are cut up, and the heads, necks, legs, and carcases sold separately, by the dozen or tlic half-dozen, strung ready for sale upon little cords. He whose finances will not allow him to tliink of luxuriating on the breast of a goose, may buy himself a little rosary of frozen heads, while one still poorer must content himself with a neck-lace, or a few dozen of webbed feet, to boil down into a Sunday soup for his little ones. The most singular spectacle is furnished by the frozen oxen, calves, and goats, which stand about in ghastly rows, and look like bleeding spectres come to haunt the carniverous tyrants whose appetites have condemned the poor victims to a prematura death. The petrified masses can be cut up only with hatchets and saws. Sucking pigs are a favourite delicacy with the Russians. Hundreds of the Httle creatureS; in their frozen condition, may be seen ranged about the sledges, with their tall motionless mothers by the side of them.
The anatomical dissections of a Russian butcher are extremely simple. Bones and meat having been all rendered equally hard by the frost, it would be difficult to attempt to separate the several joints. Tiie animals are, accordingly, sawn up into a number of slices of an inch or two in thickness, and in the course of this operation a quantity of animal sawdust is scattered on the snow, whence it is eagerly gathered up by poor children, of whom great numbers haunt the market. Fish, which is offered for sale in the same hard condition, is cut up in a similar way. The little diminutive snitki are brought to market in sacks, and rattle like so many hazel nuts when thrown into the scale. The pikes, the salmon, and the sturgeon, so pliant and supple when alive, are now as hard as though they had been cut out of marble, and so they must be kept, for a sudden thaw would spoil them, and to guard against this, they are constantly encased in ice or snow. Sometimes the whole mass freezes together, and the hatchet must then be liberally applied before the piscatory petrifactions can be liberated from their icy incrustations.