The Case Is Very Different, However, At A Russian Post Station; When An Official Or Officer Comes, Every One Is Active Enough, Cringing Round The Watering-Place For Fear Of Flogging Or Punishment.

Officers and officials belong, in Russia, to the privileged class, and assume all kinds of despotism.

If, for example, they do not travel on duty, they should not, according to the regulations, have any greater advantages than private travellers. But, instead of setting a good example, and showing the mass of the people that the laws and regulations must be observed, it is precisely these people who set all laws at defiance. They send a servant forward or borrow one from their fellow-travellers, to the station to announce that on such a day they shall arrive, and will require eight or twelve horses. If any hindrance occurs during this time - a hunt or a dinner - or if the wife of the traveller has a headache or the cramp, they postpone the journey without any ado to another day or two; the horses stand constantly ready, and the postmaster dare not venture to give them to private travellers. {308} It may so happen that travellers have in such a case to wait one or even two days at a station, and do not get through their journey quicker by the post than by a caravan. In the course of my journey by the Russian post, I several times went only a single stage during a whole long day.

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