. All the Russias: travels and studies in contemporary European Russia, Finland, Siberia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. he stranger from a land of representative institutions they are fraught with the in-terest and pathos ofsome noble and his-toric landmark sinkingslowly into the sea. The first impres-sion of Helsinki,however, is ones last;surprise and admira-tion at the enterpriseand vigour by whichso poor and small a people have made of their capital so civilisedand so progressive a modern city. Forty years ago Helsingfors•had only 20,000 inhabitants, to-day it has more than four timesthat
. All the Russias: travels and studies in contemporary European Russia, Finland, Siberia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. he stranger from a land of representative institutions they are fraught with the in-terest and pathos ofsome noble and his-toric landmark sinkingslowly into the sea. The first impres-sion of Helsinki,however, is ones last;surprise and admira-tion at the enterpriseand vigour by whichso poor and small a people have made of their capital so civilisedand so progressive a modern city. Forty years ago Helsingfors•had only 20,000 inhabitants, to-day it has more than four timesthat number, and as I have already remarked, I know of no capitalcity in the world which surpasses it in order, cleanliness, conveni-ence and all the externals of modern civilisation. The streets areperfectly kept, and little electric-cars, models of their kind, fur-nish rapid and comfortable transport to all parts; education in allbranches of knowledge, for both sexes, offers every theoreticaland material opportunity; the Post-office, to take one exampleof government, is the best arranged—not the biggest, of course. The Bunghers Chamber. FINLAND 73 —-I have ever seen, our post-offices in the great provincial townsof England, where the whole of Helsingfors would be but a parish,being but barns in comparison; and on the table in my sitting-room at the Hotel Kamp was a telephone by which I could con-verse with all parts of Finland. All these things are the signsof good citizenship, the more to be admired as it has grown upon
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjecttolstoy, bookyear1902
