The weekly north Iowa times. [volume] (McGregor, Iowa) 1857-1867, 1859-09-21
Editorial correspondence.

Editorial Correspondence.
REroRrER's HALL, U. s. AGR. FAIR,l
CHICAGO, Thursday, Sept. IA, 80.
Dear Times: This is the third day of the
Fair, and there are probably as many people on
the ground aud surrounding as it can be mum.
bered during any day of the six or seven devo.
ted to this great Exhibition. have heard the
crowd estimated by one of the Marshals at
seventy thousand, but there can be only an ap.
proximate guess ut the number besides, there
arc countless thousands in the city who pay but
little attention to the Fair, the streets being
nearly as densely packed at IL o'clock as they
are in the morning. We shall learn by the re.
port of tickets sold, and the amount of money
received at the gates, about what to call the
number for each day, and until that data is re.
ceived, let us call the living mass I" an al.
mighty big crowd" and let it pass.
The Grounds are near the somewhat celebra.
brated Cottage Grove House, from three to four
miles south Of Chicago, close to the Lake
shore, and on the way to tho Garden City Race
Track. Every Hotel in the city is filed ''plumb
FULL" hundreds being obliged to sit down and
sleep in the chairs of the bar rooms and offices,
If, indeed, they are lucky enough to get chair
without prior occupant. The horse cars, ON.
nibuses, Hacks, and every imaginable mode OF
private conveyance, are in requisition to carry
passengers to the centre of attraction-they
all go crowded as full as though the last hope
ofeach member of the public depended on get
ting to the Fair on time but the great line of
travel from the city to the Grounds is the ILL
nois Central Accommodation Train, which
leaves the head Of Lake street Gts Depot once
every fifteen minutes, carrying, each trip, IL to
20 large passenger cars, and delivering, each
hour, up to three o'clock, not less than 5000
persons. This vast number pay ten cents down
and ten cents back, and Us twenty to thirty
thousand are carried each way daily, it is FORE
gone conclusion that the Illinois Central, as
we'll as all other interests about Chicago, are
making good thing of it.
OF the Exhibition, it is impossible to speak
in detail the daily papers of the city give the
smallest minutia relating to it, and they are
just now loaded with scarcely anything but in.
cidents connected with the Fair Your readers
have all been to County and to State Fairs, and
they have worn themselves down trying to get
a sight of the horses and plows, the oxen and
cows, the sheep and the pigs, the donkeys and
the bantams, the fruits and the flowers, the sta.
tionary and the paintings, the model gates and
the patent wind-mills, the trotting races and the
pie and cake wagons, the confusion of carria-
ges aud the vast concourse of people. Well, if
you just imagine what sort of an affair Uncle
Samuel himself can get up with all his thirty.
three daughters, with their thirty millions of
children, and tonada to boot, to contest for pri.
yes in the productions of nature and the works
of art, you can form some idea of the immensi-
ty of the show and the clouds of living beings
who perambulate its grounds from morn till
dewy eve. 1t is like one tremendous camp.
meeting, the tents whitening the plain, and the
melon wagons and apple stands being as abund.
ant as they were at the celebrated fancy picture
drawn, once, by the "Wagon Boy" in Congress,
of a general training
The first sight of the buildings within the
enclosure strikes one unfavorably that is, if
temperance ia yet believed to be virtue. On
entering the gate, which to-day you must do by
falling into the rear of line of precedents
probably 200 yards in extent, ito procure tick
ETY., your eyes fall on not less than dozen one
and two-story frames of warehouse or depot
look and size, shanty built, and marked in front
and on ends. "LAGER BEER" Sands
xxx Ale," :Down's Superior Ale," Hills
Cream Ale" &C., &C., while on many other
buildings there are marked Barber Shop"
"Dining Hail." Lodging" Refreshments"
for all the world like an old.fashioned battal-
ion drill of cornstalk militia down south. The
impression made on the mind of the visitor is
that everybody in the Union had been expected
to come here hungry and thirsty, and so glo-
lingly do the Ale and Beer Halls stick OUT"
that we must conclude that Chicago's idea of q
welcome to her "cousins" was best emblemat.
lied by a liberal display of her malt liquors.
There is decidedly too much of this, and it
strikes one as showing willingness to sell the
occupancy of the ground (only so acres in all
and much too limited for the show to almost
any interest that ,oould pay.
"Floral Hall and Fine Art Hall are
probably filed with q greater profusion of beau
ties in their respective lines than were ever dis
played before in the Union, outside of the New
York Crystal Palace, which, it will be renem-
bered, contained earth-gems and arttreasures
from the whole world. l could have seen
something of the wonders of these two attract
i've temples had chosen to take place at a
long shooting distance, behind a column Of am
bilious curiosity lovers, who we're gently though
imperatively, pushed and jammed in regular
file into one door, through the Hall, and out of
the exit door-The sight, learned, was SO in
termixed with tramping on toes and pressure of
erinoine that it was hardly worth hazarding my
corns in the one case, or shocking my modesty
in the other, and declined passing through the
ordeal. Many remarked when safely through
the mob, that they were grateful to escape with
their clothes on, and as for the articles on exhi
bition, they scarcely had time or space to turn
an eye in any direction except in front. The
Halls we're too small, the doors entirely too
small, and never again should there be con-
stracted building SO unsuited for the purpose.
Pamphlet descriptions of these wonders will
shortly be published, and those who want to
know all about them can buy and read. There
was talk of $1,000 shawl and of Valcn-
ciennes lace worth 500 a yard, but they were
not on my "beat" and did not see them.
had the pleasure Of hearing it announced
that Mr.. Washbon, of Iowa, had exhibited the
best Bull OF Devon stock, Il think) the splen.
die animal was of proportions SO majestic and
powerful Tat Jupiter himself would have re-
garded him favorite.
About half past ten TO-DAY it commenced ssto