Page:Morgan Philips Price - Siberia (1912).djvu/113

 Rh uniform with stick and spurs, and carry on diplomatic flirtations with the other sex. The poorer citizen on very festive occasions can also be induced to leave his doorstep and his bag of nuts, and walk with his wife, family and perambulator. In fact, human nature is much the same in this little Siberian frontier town as at Hampstead Heath or Earl's Court on a Bank Holiday. The difference that exists is superficial only and due to local circumstances, but beneath the surface Homo Vulgaris here has much the same habits as the same animal in Western Europe.

The chief thing that strikes a traveller is the absence of any indulgence in those sports of which Englishmen are so fond. There is no sign of a football or cricket club or of a racecourse. The only recreation is eating and drinking, doing nothing and walking on the boulevard to see other people in their best dresses. They appear to regard physical exertion for the sake of bodily exercise as mere waste of time. On the other hand, while at first I looked on the indolent Slav, who has no notion that time moves, as a reckless waster of a most valuable commodity, I have often wondered since whether I was quite fair in thus judging him, especially when I think now of the time-wasting crowds at a Saturday afternoon football match in England. In fact the "Citizen of the World" may be studied with advantage, and the old proverb, "So many nations, so many customs; so many men, so many minds," is an excellent corrective to critical infallibility. Perhaps here as elsewhere the via media is the safest.

In Minusinsk Slavonic civilization and the Russian social system are everywhere predominant. Never-