The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1914. THE RUSSIAN SPIRIT.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 305, 23 December 1914, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1914. THE RUSSIAN SPIRIT.

A writer .in Collier’s, - who’ was in Russia at the outbreak of the war, draws a fine picture of the Russian spirit. He says: The war in Manchuria was entered into lightly, one might say even gayly, by the officers. Not so in this year of 1914. The day after the declaration of war every grog shop in the Empire was closed by Imperial decree during the mobilisation, and just now we learn that the shutdown has been extended to the duration of the war. The day of rioting and dissipation at the front and in the capital is a thing of the past. Hero in Petrograd all is quiet and earnest to a degree. The restaurants and cafes that in the old days were barely awake for business at midnight and were running until daylight are now closed promptly at eleven. Dress clothes -in the evening have almost vanished, even from the hotels, for, as one man told me, “No one thinks now of dress or appearances. Russia is taking her task too seriously for that.” On the streets the brilliant uniforms of the variegated regiments of the Russian army have given place to the simple khaki tunics, with little but the insignia of rank to distinguish! the general from the youngest subaltern. Nearly all of the great squares are filled with troops of the reserves drilling and marching and counter- 1 marching. Long lines of carts bearing ammunition, with a soldier sitting on each wagon, file through the Nevsky Prospekt which but a month ago was one of the world’s greatest avenues of pleasure. Yesterday I noticed a siege train of artillery passing through the great area before the Winter Palace. Even now the streets are full of soldiers clad in their campaign clothes, with earnest faces > and determined eyes, and yet what we see to-day is but a meagre fraction of the men of war that swarmed the streets a month ago. Truly, were the enemy to spend a day in Petrograd or any other Russian city, he might well shudder at the spirit that has been let loose, and tremble at the prospect of final conclusions with an Empire of 170,000,000 that steadily, earnestly, and with purpose set in putting its entire soul and the bulk of its intelligence and thought into the struggle that is barely under way. No one who stays here long can doubt that this country is in this war' to win, aye,/even though it takes tenj years. The Germans have sown the! whirlwind. I