Of illuminations on a grander scale, and against their will, the people of Moscow have had enough. Constantinople excepted, there is, perhaps, no city in Europe that has been so often burnt to the ground. By the Tartars alone it was well singed more than twelve times. Mongohan, Polish, French, and other storms of war, electrical and other causes, may have changed the city to a heap of ashes about as often. It is with good reason, therefore, that fire is held in especial dread, and particular measures of precaution adopted. One is, that every house has a gigantic ladder placed against it, reaching from the ground to the roof. According to the police regulations, these ladders should be double, and very strongly made, kept in good order, and supported against the walls by long thick props or stays. But as they are constantly exposed to the weather, of course they are soon rotten, and must require very sharp overlooking, not to do more harm than good, when they are really needed.
The best security against the spread of injury by fii'e, has been adopted since the conflagration of 1812, namely, the more frequent erection of stone houses, the granting certain privileges to such buildings, and the prohibition of wooden houses within certain districts. Of the 12,000 dweUinghouses that Moscow contains, about two-thirds are built of wood, nevertheless, and only one-third of stone and brick. The stone is a snow-white and very soft limestone found in the neighbourhood of Moscow, so soft, indeed, that it may be wrought with a hatchet, and is fuU of countless fossil remains.
Moscow offers another proof that the present is the golden age for teachers in Russia ; she possesses few, desires them much, and pays them highly. Private teachers, who with us are but an insignificant class of pedestrians, are here not seldom seen to drive four horses, and it is usual for those who have taught successfully for twenty years or so, to have laid by a provision for their future lives ; whereas, in Germany, they would at most have been able to maintain themselves duringthat time. Ten rubles is the price of an ordinary lesson from an " examined" teacher. Students get in general five rubles. I know some examples of professors obtaining as much as sixty and seventy rubles a lesson. In the arts, the price is about twenty or twenty-five rubles. Many persons, but Httle versed in the principles of national economy, are accustomed to think that countries where the necessaries of life are dear must be rich countries. According to such a standard, a similar conclusion might be drawn of the uncommon prosperity of science and knowledge in Moscow, where their priests are so lavishly rewarded. In the street of Dimitrius there was no end of the " Utshebnaya Savedcnie" (educational establishment), and most of the establishments had doctors and couii; counsellors at their head.
At a bookseller's in Moscow, I saw a picture of the canonization of Mitrophan, the newest saint in Russia. The emperor was represented kneehng with his whole suite on the ground before the coffin of the saint, which the collected clergy were blessing. Although Mitrophan has only enjoyed the honours of saintship six years, his empire is already very great, and he is much in fashion. His picture is every where sold, and many wear it on their breasts ; and truly this is not wonderful, seeing that since he arose from the earth, Mitrophan has wrought sixty-eight well attested miracles, which are all set down in a book ! St. Mitrophan is the newest saint in Russia, but he will not be the last. I was informed by a Russian, that in the environs of St. Petersburg alone, he knew of many graves of pious priests, whose reputation was beginning to spread among the people. The next saint will perhaps be the metropolitan Plato; who is not unknown to us, by his excellent sermons. A visit to his grave is said to be efficacious for the toothach. There is some wood over the grave, I know not whether a cross or only a rail, from which a splinter bitten is an infallible remedy. It is said that half the wood has been already bitten away.