Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 July 1883 — Peter the Great. [ARTICLE]

Peter the Great.

i When Peter the Great was living in England, he said and did many strange things. When in Westminster Hall; he inquired of a distinguished barrister who were the gentlemen in wigs and gowns, and being told they were lawyers, said: “Lawyers! Why, I have but two in my whole dominion, and, when I return I mean to hang one. ” The house which he occupied while in England—Saye’s court, at Deptford, the property of Evelyn, the- author of “Sylva”—was left in a dirty, ruinous condition after the imperial visit. In the garden at Saye’s court was a thick, prickly holly hedge, 400 feet long. This fine holly hedge was a source of great delight to Peter and his retinue in their drunken revelries. They would get wheelbarrows, and, putting a person in each, for wagers, charge the hedge. Peter himself was sometimes in the barrow; but the grandest attack of all was made by his Czarship, when he drove the luckless Prince Menzikoff four feet into the bush and. left him sticking there. Evelyn’s servant writes to him of their doings at Deptford: “There is a house full of people and right nasty. The Czar lies in your library. He dines twice, at 10 o’clock and 6, The King is coming here today, and the best parlor is tolerably clean for him.” *>