REVOLUTIONARY INCENDIARISM. Our foreign files bring us startling news from Russia—including further accounts of the revolutionary schemes in that great empire, and of incendiary attempts to destroy the capital by fire. St. Petersburg is not a city which would easily burn up. To pass along its wide avenues and look upon its universal stone and stucco palaces, it would appear almost impregnable to the flames. It has ample facilities for quenching fire in summer, for it is cut up with large canals, and the Neva, a wide and inexhaustible river, runs almost through the middle of the city. Yet we learn that notwithstanding all this, some thirty fires had taken place in the city during the two weeks preceding the departure of the last European steamer. The city has been placed under martial law, trade and commerce is at a stand-still, and even goods ordered from England to St. Petersburg have been countermanded. The committee of the bank has passed a resolution for the unlimited prolongation of the credits hitherto opened to large commercial firms, whose establishments were burnt in the late conflagration. A Syndicate has likewise been appointed for the purpose of opening credits to smaller shopkeepers.
These fires have a political significance, and therefore create a sensation disproportionate even to their great extent. An imperial decree has been published declaring that rapine, murder, incendiarism and destruction of crops is to be punishable with death.
The statements that a third of the city has been destroyed are greatly exaggerated, and it is acknowledged that the burnt district includes only the poorer and inferior portions of the city. Yet the loss is roughly estimated at from two and a half to five millions dollars of money. None of the great palaces or public places near the Neva have been destroyed.
Yet this fire has consumed one of the most remarkable and characteristic features of St. Petersburg—the celebrated Apraxin Dvor, or, as it is called by the English residents, the Louse Market. This was a large space, some fifteen acres in area, surrounded by uniform rows of stores, and situated near the Gostinnoi Dvor, in the heart of the city, and but a few minutes walk from the Nevsky Prospekt, the Broadway of St. Petersburg. This Louse Market is the favorite resort of the poorer classes. It is entered by wide gates between the cordon of buildings which enclosed it, and which, quite respectable in appearance, would lead one to expect a regular and even elegant series of stores.
But once inside, all this changes. The entire area is covered by a most intricate labyrinth of streets or paths wide enough only for pedestrians, and flanked by little wooden houses, never more than two stories high and generally but one. Occasionally the paths expand into little open spaces filled with pedlers instead of houses. Every conceivable thing, and a great many that are not conceivable, could be bought here—from a ton of lead to an old pamphlet worth two copeks, from a feather bed to a needle, from a pianoforte to a broken candlestick.
The old bazar was destroyed, together with rows and rows of stores in the adjoining streets. The great government building, occupied by the Minister of the Interior, was in flames, while the soldiers and police were dashing around to rescue human beings from the flames, for it was useless to try to save property. The fire engines from Moscow five hundred miles distant, were sent for, but only staid one day, being needed in their own city, where four fires had broken out.
Toward evening the priests came out in their rich robes, flashing with gold and purple, and with banners and Greek crosses marched through the streets, the choristers chanting the magnificent chorals of the Greek church. At night the church porticoes and the halls of the palaces were crowded with homeless people, who would have starved but for government aid. During the night the Emperor came down from his country palace at Tsarskoye Selo and visited the frightened, weeping crowds, personally assuring them of his care and protection. For three days the conflagration continued, and at latest dates was not entirely subdued. The property destroyed in the stores and dwellings (apart from the edifices themselves) is estimated in St. Petersburg at 15,000,000 of rubles.
In some quarters this fearful fire is attributed to Polish incendiarism, and there are fears that it is not the last the city will suffer. The Gostinnoi Dvor, comprising the most important stores in the city, representing the local wealth of St. Petersburg, is closed day and night, and extra watchers are placed in all the public buildings. All St. Petersburg is in an excitement such as it has not known for many, many years.