There is a tide in the affairs of men,

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows, and in miseries.

SHAKESPEARE.

Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks; methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full mid-day beam.

Some force whole regions, in spite

O' geography, to change their site;

MILTON.

Make former times shake hands with latter,
And that which was before come after.

BUTLER.

Westward the course of empire takes its way;
The first four acts already past,

A fifth shall close the drama with the day;
Time's noblest offspring is the last.

BISHOP BERKELEY.

IT

cago, whose population has now gone far beyond the million mark, was a town of less than 4,500 sixty years ago. And it was then a most uninteresting town, situated at the mouth of a sluggish river, built upon a site that was barely above the level of the water, and surrounded on three sides. by a drearily monotonous stretch of flat prairie. Western enterprise has raised the site by piling twelve feet of earth upon it, and upon that site so made has erected two cities, the first of wood, and when that was fire-swept, replacing it by one of iron and brick, or stone. Where there was once low swamp or bleak prairie, where there has since been smoking ashes, there now rise beautiful homes, huge business houses and colossal manufacturing establishments. Stretching out in every direction across

the prairie are the steel rails of twenty-six lines of railway, over which roll out from and into the city the enormous traffic for which it has become worldfamed. Then, too, there are forty-six miles of water front and among the ships at anchor here will be found some that have come direct from European ports, and hundreds that are engaged in the immense trade of the upper lakes.

It is a city of great enterprises. It erects buildings whose area is computed, not in square feet, but in acres. It undertakes obligations whose cost must be reckoned with 1,000 as the unit instead of 1. It organizes a World's Fair that requires a small city for its accommodation alone. So accustomed have its citizens become to talk of these huge undertakings that the name "Chicago" has become a synonym for "bigness." And yet the people of Chicago do not mean to boast. They speak of these things as if it were the manifest destiny of their city to undertake them on behalf of the universe. Farther west, in the smaller cities that ape Chicago, one hears boasting; but the Chicago man speaks of the thousand-unit as a matter of course. Great undertakings have been thrust upon him, and he has never shirked them, and has indeed grown somewhat accustomed to them.

One cannot but admire their dauntless spirit in the face of enormous difficulty. When the sun rose one morning he shone luridly upon the smoking ashes of a once fair city; before he set, men

that had lost all were clearing away the ashes that they might begin to rebuild a better on its site. A youth in the wheat pit found a veteran standing in the way of his plans. The older man had as many years' experience as the young man had months, and practically unlimited capital, yet the young man entered upon the gigantic undertaking of cornering all the grain in that immense graingrowing country, in order to get the older rival out of the way. The enterprise was of such immense dimensions that, for a day, the merchants of the world dropped their work to watch the contest.

Another curious feature of business life here is the apparent nonchalance with which men accept reverse. By a skilful move one man coolly appropriates his neighbor's fortune, and leaves him penniless. The unfortunate speculator does not shoot himself, but applies for a position in the counting-house of the fortunate man, and begins to work up again. He moves out of the North End into the West End till he has again made his pile. When he comes back the fashionable halls of the North End give him a hearty welcome, affecting to believe that the family has been off for an extended trip to Europe, or elsewhere, in the interval. The possession of wealth is the open sesame, and while culture is desired it is not an absolute necessity in the aspirant for social distinction.

The River is the social Rubicon of Chicago. It has a curious course, only possible in a prairie

country. The two branches run almost directly south and north, parallel to the lake-shore. A little to the north of the heart of the city, they meet, and the united streams take a course due east. Thus the city is naturally divided into three sections. That to the north of the united stream and to the east of the north branch, is the residential section, the home of the families of wealth and fashion. That to the south of the river, and to the east of the south branch, is the business centre, and in its extreme southern quarter is another residential section. That to the west of the two branches is the manufacturing district and the home of the laboring men.

Perhaps the majority of those who visit Chicago turn first to the business centre. If the characteristic of the business centre of New York is rush, that of Chicago is a scramble. In the former city the current flows with a swift current in one direction, in the latter there are innumerable cross currents. The "whirl" of business is especially applicable here, and the man who comes out of it unhurt is able to keep his feet anywhere else. The vortex of the whirl is the Board of Trade. It is noisier than New York, and at times more exciting. Near it is the City Hall Building, into which the citizens put $6,000,000 of their money, making of it a huge pile of limestone and granite that should bid defiance to any future holocaust that sweeps over the city. This building is such a