In the middle of the park is a large kiosk, big enough for a couple of hundred folk to pirouette at a time. It has a roof supported by pillars, but there are no side walls. A couple of fiddlers were playing hard when we entered, and a cornet coming in at odd minutes composed the band, and, until midnight, the couples twirled and whisked round and round the wooden floor. Why should not something of the kind be allowed in our parks from seven to twelve in the evening at a charge of a few pence?
The great national dance of the country is called the jenka. It is more like a schottische perhaps than anything else; and really it was extraordinary to see how well these peasants danced, and how they beat time. Thoroughly they entered into the spirit of the thing, the polka, waltz, and jenka being all danced in turn, until the park closed.
Writing letters in Finland is an expensive amusement. Every epistle, not delivered by private hand, costs twopence for transmission; rather a high rate for home postage, considering that foreign letters only cost a fourth more. Postcards cost one penny, whether for home or foreign use.
This high rate of postage seems very remarkable, considering the almost universal adoption of my father's old friend's (Sir Rowland Hill) enlightened suggestion that a penny would pay.
We learn that during the year 1896 our English post-office passed 1,834,200,000 letters and 314,500,000 postcards; and, writing on the same subject, the Duke of Norfolk said, "The penny letter has long been known to be the sheet anchor of the post-office, and it is interesting to record that no less than 95 per cent. of the total number of inland letters passed for a penny each." Fifteen years later every English-speaking land could be reached by a penny stamp.
Finland might take the hint and institute a penny post; but we hope she will not send some fifty thousand letters unaddressed, as we English did, their valuable contents amounting to several thousands of pounds!
The quickest postal route to Finland is viâ St. Petersburg; but letters are often delayed to be searched, and they are not unfrequently lost, so that all important epistles are best registered; and one Finnish family, some of whose relations live in Germany, told us they never thought of sending letters either way without registering them first.
Finland has her own stamps, but all letters passing direct from Russia to Finland, or Finland to Russia, must have special stamps upon them, the Tzar having forbidden the Finnish stamps to be used on letters going out of Finland, which is contrary to Finnish laws.
Telegrams from or to Finland are ruinous. Even in Suomi itself they cost a small fortune, and outside they are even worse; but then no one telegraphs to any one in the territory, for almost every person has a telephone, which can be annexed from town to town, and those who have not telephones can go to a public office in every village and expend a penny on their message, therefore in that respect the Finns are in advance of us.
We were amused to find the Finlanders very inquisitive. This is as much a trait in their character as their stubborn obstinacy, their intense truthfulness, or their wondrous honesty. And a Finn runs a Scotchman very hard in evading a straightforward answer.