United States or Norway ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The Zemsky Natchalniks, upon whom the government relied principally to carry out the census, were inert, and for the most part the work was left to private initiative. In February, 1897, Chekhov was completely engrossed by a project of building a "People's Palace" in Moscow. "People's Palaces" had not been thought of; the common people spent their leisure in drink-shops.
"As I was afraid lest she might give me the slip you never can tell what may happen, or who may come into those drink-shops, or what wind may blow into a woman's head I remained there all the evening waiting for her.
What took up all his thoughts was the state of the world in which his brothers and he were living. How was that to be made better? As he went up and down in his father's kingdom, he beheld hovels in which poor people had to live, and drink-shops, and gambling-houses, and prisons. He was always asking himself, how are evils like these to be put away?
Holy Week terminates with the 'Saturday of Glory, when spirits are drunk till there is not a dram left in the drink-shops, which frequently bear such names as 'The Saviour of the World, 'The Grace of God, 'The Fountain of Our Lady, etc. The poor deluded Romanists have a holiday on that day over the tragic end of Judas.
What could be more depressing than the miles of poverty-stricken streets around the heart of our modern cities? The memory lies on one "heavy as frost and deep almost as life." It is terrible to think of the children playing on the pavements; the depletion of vitality, with artificial stimulus supplied from the flaring drink-shops.
They made us mount guard with the pickets, we drank a great deal of eau-de-vie, and the drink-shops of Mourmelon were full without let, when suddenly Canrobert passed us in review along the front line of battle. I see him now on his big horse, bent over the saddle, his hair flying, his waxed mustaches in a ghastly face. A mutiny was breaking out.
There were several drink-shops opposite, so that the people are adequately supplied with the means of festivity. The place has no striking features, and seems to vegetate in the way common to Irish country towns. It probably lives on the markets, waking up once a week, and immediately going to sleep again.
Stripped of his picturesque trappings, and with no plumes to shadow the hollows in his temples, M'Alister looked gaunt and feeble enough, as he lay in the little hospital bed, which barely held his long limbs. Such a wreck of giant powers of body, and noble qualities of mind as the drink-shops are preparing for the hospitals every day!
An intellectual man will loathe a disordered society. We may say with certainty that the external circumstances of people are a measure of their inner life. Our mean and disordered little country towns in Ireland, with their drink-shops, their disregard of cleanliness or beauty, accord with the character of the civilians who inhabit them.
The rabble shattered, befouled, and rent into pieces all the silk and plush furniture of Treppel. They also smashed up all the neighbouring taverns and drink-shops, while they were at it. Zolotorotzi a subtle euphemism for cleaners of cesspools and carters of the wealth contained therein. trans.
Word Of The Day