An immense number of servants are recruited from the army. These poor fellows, when they are dismissed after their twenty or twenty-five years' service, have commonly forgotten during that time any mechanical art whereby they might live, have lost their relations by death, and their former masters by having served as soldiers, for the emperor's service sets them free from all other. On the other hand, as Dentshuks (servants) to so many officers, they have learned to obey to admiration, and, therefore, naturally seek employment to attend on single gentlemen, or as porters, messengers, or watchmen in public institutions. For the latter purpose, they are generally preferred to all others, for which reason they are met with in numbers at all hospitals, poor-houses, theatres, at the exchanges, and in the schools as door-keepers, waiters, &c., in their old worn uniforms, and a whole series of medals and crosses on their breasts. If any master desire a being who has absolutely no will of liis own, who is ready to devote all his powers of mind and body to his service, who is yielding, submissive, and patient enough to bear all his whims and humours, even his anger and injustice, without a mmnnur ; in a word, if any one wish for the very ideal of a servant, who will bear his master, as it were, upon his hands, go through fire and water for him without complaint, who neither sleeps nor wakes without permission, nor eats nor drinks but at command, who makes no other answer, and has no other thought, on the receipt of any
According to the statistical returns, there are not less than 85,000 of such attendant spirits in St. Petersburg.
possible order or commission but " slushu" (I obey), let liim at once engage a Russian dentshuk, who, after he has endured the fiery ordeal of twenty years' service as a Russian soldier, and learnt suppleness by countless punishments, will find the hardest place mild and easy. It is not possible that one who loves to rule could find a softer cushion whereon to lean than such a dentshuk — so good-tempered, so obliging, so unwearied, so attentive and obsequious as never other man can be, imless we could unbrutify our faithful dog, and breathe his devoted spirit into a speaking, living human form.
After these three classes of Russian servants, the Germans are the most numerous in St. Petersburg, then the Finlanders, Esthonians, and Lettes. The French and Tartars fill only particular offices, but these almost exclusively. The Enghsh of this class are the fewest, and they, too, seem to appropriate some particular posts. To describe this di^dsion of employment by nations, it will be necessary to mention the different charges and offices in a Russian house more in detail. A review of this kind is, besides, well calculated to throw hght upon the domestic Hfe of Russia, as it characterizes not only the generally-overlooked class of servants, but in many respects their masters also.
A fully-appointed house of the first class in Russia, without mentioning the immerous resident relations, old aunts, cousins, adopted children, &c., without mentioning the educational staff, the German, French, and Russian masters, tutors and governesses, the family physician, companions and others, who, as majorum gentium, must of course be excluded, has so astoundmg a number of serving-folk of one kind or another, that the like is to be found in no other country in the world. The following may be named as never wanting in the list : the superintendent of accounts, the secretary, the dworezki or maitre d'hotel, the valets of the lord, the valets of the lady, the dyiitka or overseer of the children, the footmen, the buffetshek or butler and his adjuncts, the table-decker, the head groom, the coachman and postilions of the lord, and the coachman and postilions of the lady, the attendants on the sons of the house and their tutors, the porter, the head cook and his assistant, the baker and the confectioner, the whole body of mushiks or servants minimarum gentium, the stove-heater, kwas brewer, the waiting-maids, and wardrobe -keeper of the lady, the waiting-maids of the grown-up daughters and of the governesses, the nurses in and past service and their under-nurses, and, when a private band is maintained, the Russian kapellmeister and the musicians.