We would ask: What did the unwelcome guest desire? A warm and comfortable dwelling? But there are in this city many fine houses, with cheap and exceedingly comfortable apartments, with Neva water laid on, staircases lighted with gas, and often with a porter hired by the landlord. We would also draw the attention of our readers to the savage brutality of such treatment of a domestic animal; the foreign crocodile is, of course, unable to digest so enormous a mass at once, and now lies, frightfully swollen and in intolerable agonies, awaiting death. In Europe inhuman treatment of domestic animals has long been punishable by law. But, notwithstanding our European lighting-system, our European pavements, our European house-building, we are still far from having shaken off our ancient prejudices:— ‘The houses may be new, but the prejudices are old.’[41] Nay, even the houses are not new—at least, the staircases of them. We have already several times mentioned in our columns that on the north side of the river, in the house of the merchant Loukyànov, the bottom steps of the wooden stairs are rotten, fallen in, and a constant danger to his servant, the soldier’s widow Afimia Skapidàrova, who is often obliged to carry water or firewood up this staircase. At last our warnings have proved true; yesterday evening, at half-past eight o’clock, Afimia Skapidàrova fell through the staircase with a soup tureen and broke her leg. We do not know whether Loukyànov will mend his staircase now; Russians are always wise when it is too late; but the victim of this Russian has perhaps already been carried to the hospital. In the same way, we still persist in maintaining that the dvorniks, who clean the wooden pavements of the Wyborg district of this town, have no right to splash the legs of the passers-by, but should shovel the mud into heaps, as is done in Europe, where boots are cleaned,” &c. “But how’s this?” said I, looking in stupefaction at my neighbour; “I never heard of such a thing!” “How so?” “Why, my dear sir, instead of pitying Ivan Matvyèich, they pity the crocodile!” “And why not? A mere animal—a _mammal_—and we have pity even for it! Which way are we behind Europe after that, eh? They’re very tender to crocodiles in Europe too, you know. Ha, ha, ha!” And my neighbour buried himself in his papers and spoke not another word.