Rensselaer Union, Volume 1, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 November 1868 — Russian Social Manners. [ARTICLE]

Russian Social Manners.

The following highly colo ed picture of Russian social life is from an English paper. There is probably a grain of truth in it. but Americans will hardly credit the account as it reads: Perhaps the worst characteristic of Russian society, when it does qpt care to put on holiday foreign manners, is its extreme coarseness. Every one is rude and loud. AU the company who have anything to say talk together at tho top of their voices. No one listens. They contradict each other flatly: they are abusive: they quarrel; they make it up over the tea-tabft. They absolutely juke constitutional exercise in talking, and the department is so violent that they often appear like people possessed. This probably arises from their extreme aversion to all other physical Lxertion, many ot them living to au old age without ever having got on horseback, or taken a healthy walk They possess no scuse of jaiutfy ami soenr to have a contempt for the beauties of nature, despising tho pleasures of country life. They have no love of sport. ' .Shooting, fishing, huntingr racing, are almost unknown among them, aud there is uot a single yacht in the Black Sea, where it is summer off the coast all the year round. The houses, when most splendid, are but decorated with gilding aud looking-glasses. They rarely boost a statute, or a llower. Their reckless expenditure and unthrift are equal to their covetousness. Nowhere is dress so costly, or so soon spoiled. A bovqrd wiU give 1,800 guineas fora black ox cloak-lining, and when he takes it off in the ante-chumber Of the. baU-rooni. his footman will roll himself up in it till ordered to give it back again. The costly Indies’ dresses made iu Taris go to Russia; but a young Muscovite belle will think nothing of getting into a narrow open drosky and rushing about with her train spread over the wheels through the winter sledge till it is spoilt. There is a British belief that Russian dinners are of delicious fare, and made gay by fruits ami pretty flowers. Nothing of the kind. .The viands are coarsq aud illassorted; the cookery is abominable. Raw fish, raw ham, mushrooms in oil, strong cheese, feriuente(t cabbage, eaten with sour cream, boiled corn, boiled sucking* pig. small beer, soup, with cold fish, saltcucjjjubcrs, Ki) and fennel in it, this, with baked fowls, is the staple food among opulent gentry; and it is washed down with raw spirits and a beverage called quaes, moro nauseous thanuuy known in the west.

A Desperate Encounter— Weasel vs. Copperhead.—The following singular occurrence is narrated by au eye witness as having transpired sonic time hist summer on tho farm of Mr. Wm. 11. BibbiusinFair-, field. The narrator was.spreading hay in a field, whenliis attention was attracted to a chimp of tall grass at some little distance, from which a weasel was constantly springing up into th? air. Approaching cautiously nearer he discovered the -daiwo of thia singular cuuduet. On a little mounclof hav a .’urge copperhtipl snake at lejst three feet long was coiled up, and with head erect, darting tongue aiid-tfiposed fangs, was wahdiing -the weasel, Who 'as waking a series of springs at the reptile, evidently with the intention of seizing it by tho throat. Tho snake dodged irnd tho weasel continued his attack till at length

by ti sndden spring he caught the snake by the throat, mid a furipus struggle ensued. The weasel held on, and tho snake wound himself about the body of the animal, almost eftUroly covering it, end seemed about "to criisliwt to death, when his wcaselship let ge-li.s Itoldon the snako's throat, and “pupped" iintrue weasel styloout of the convoluted embrace of his enernv, spring? ing atlmist'ttedTeet intotiieiur. The mkn then crawled under the mound of iiay, ahd . in it few moments tho weasel re appeared and crawled after him, and from the basing nfthohaya desperate fight seemed to be going on beneath it. It ceased in a short time, and the weasel came ont dragging the snake lifter him, dead with his throat bitton open. The weasel dragged tho snake into n neighboring fence, and, there they both disappeared.".; —Gen. jsferfdan teiln some tall buffalo •torie <■ He Says he saw,- two weeks apo, a [ herd of btiffala ninety-five miles longAwenty- | five miles wide, and which mart _fr»va cop-