The Montana post., 1868-09-25
JOURNEY JOTTINGS.
NUMBER EIGHT.

| Buildings --Trade--6rave Considerations in
| a Park-The Couldocks- Theatrical Pollti-
caI--The Tanner clubs--Senator Trunbull--
A Gas Bill In Prospective and Conclusion.
| Great is Chicago and exceeding is its
profit. If to see Paris is TO see the world,
seeing Chicago is equivalent TO good
peep at half America at least. It is not
every town that in Ihirty-seven years
has increased from population of 100
to probably not less than S00.0 900. In
1888 Chicago paid $3.50 taxes; in 1868
she has a debt of over six million dol
lars. equal to the total assessed valuation
of Montana What prosperity In 1888
the United States bought twenty million
acres of land, including the site of Chi.
cago. for $3O, 900, and the Indians took
blankets at that, with probably good
round margin for the agents; now, land
in Chicago sells as high as $4,000 per
foot, and they are talking of it going
'sdirt cheap" At this rate it will soon
be here, that any one having less than
a quarter million estate, will have TO De
taken west of the Missouri to be buried,
or the Indian custom revived OF sus>
pending them on trees TO be dried and
blown away. However, "susPending"
is not favorite amusement. Any or
dinary person visiting Chicago 10y rail,
need not expect any undue excitement
among the people on arrival, from the
fact that 300 trains arrive and depart
from the city every twenty-four hours,
and the railroad system making Chicago
its centre is $500 miles in extent; but If
he is a parsonage of any importance
whatever, he will find IL difficult to run
the gauntlet without notice O. some kind
in one or more of the seventy-four daily,
weekly, monthly or quarterly publica-
tions OF the Garden City. He can stop
Ii ~ s.
seven or eight hundred guests; (the pop
ulation of a western city ,)have his choice
of attending any one of 120 churches,
and should his evil passions prevail pub
licly, he will be fortunate it escaping
the 800 police, who keep watch and ward
at the public expense. Should his
mother come back from the deSolate
shore" wherever that is, and make
him a child again." he can join the Co.
700 scholars that attend one or other
of the thirty-eight public schools. and
one or other OF the 400 teachers Will
teach his young idea how to shoot" (off
his mouth) after the most approved
modern Style.
Chicago, it is said. owes its greatness
to what, on sufferance, is called the Chi
cago river, narrow, serpintine toIked
bayou from the lake, having neither a
, current, ebb nor flow, bat a short dist
ance from Lake Michigan, dividing into
two arms that extend north and south
almost parallel with the shores of the
lake, and on this elongated, murky, gar
bage -freighted horse pond, ride tile com
mercial fleets of the American inland
seas. secure from the storms that toss
the waters of this most tempestuos lake,
and with ample facilities for receiving
and delivering freights at the thirty
miles of doekage within the city limits.
. Chicago has grown tremendously in
business even in the two and half
years since ] last visited it, having built
or having in process of erection since
that time. not less. than 10000 new
houses, some of whicl are of the finest
order of architecture, and would be or
naments TO the proudest quarter of the
, finest city in the world Among these
are prominent the mar bic front block of
: Potter Palmer, which will cost nearly
half a million, and the new Tribune
building. Although the river virtually
made Chicago, since Chicago has been
made, the river is, in some respects, a
nuisance; it is an avenue in
which there is a continuous naval
review of the commercial fleets, and the
many thousands who daily witness il
are too frequently reviewers perforce
I
! the time for the shipping, while the
eager, bustling, IightaiRgized throng.
> that would halt at nothing short OF
| utter mpossibilities-yield to tate with
: something like that christian resigna-
ton with which road agent or horse
thief submits to the mild behests of the
Vigilance Committee This, however.
is to be obviated An experimental
tunnel is nearly completed under the
river at the Washington street crossing,
and if 1t proves a success, as it must,
before two more years, every crossing
in the business portion of the city will
be tunneled. They will cost about one
million dollars each. In view of the
distance from the river at which the
grade to the tunnel has TO be started, it
is proposed to adopt the London method
} in the lower town, and have platforms
upon which the wagons and pedestrians
will pass-be lowered by machinery
to the tunnel, and passing through, b..
elevated at the other side. The great
Lake Tunnel Is a perfect success, and
from guzzling the filthiest water in
America, Chicagoans now have it as
pure and plentiful as any city in the
country, direct from the lake, or rushing
up through artesian wells at the rate OF
a million gallons day. m
The trade of the city is enormous. |
have the memoranda of last years bust
! ness, but the figures are too appalling
TO commence on at IL o'clock, Saturday
night. suffice it, that last year there
passed through her twenty-five elevators
Fifty millions bushels of grain, and the
lumber trade this year will approxi-
mate to thousand millions of feet
Real estate in some quarters has
doubled in fifteen months, and where
the scrub brush was growing two years
since. eight or nine miles up or down
the lake, there are now beautiful sub
urban residences and handsome grounds;
!. | NNhile in the han n Of IL =.