Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1871-10-23
ie.r INDY Of she Lamp.

4 KAA Af&@tNN W 49, ~f'~-~-N"
This historical parsonage, name unt
known, aided by kicking COW, also
name unknown, that by colliding with .
kerosene lamp destroyed Chicago, has
been found at last by John Hay, the
author Of Little Breaches" etc. The
historical COW although resembling the
one wotshipped by all stfue Brahmins,
has been earnestly cussed by all true
,Chicagoans, The COW has been spirited
away by some industrious Yank, who is
preparing side-show and a lecture for
the purpose of travelling throughout the
country. John Hay relates his expert
ence as follows: ss a49t a
But of all the miserable plain stretch
ing out before me to the burning coal
heaps in the northern distance, was
only interested in the narrow block be-
tween Dekoven and Taylor streets, now
quite fiat and cool, with small gutter
boys marching through the lots, some
kicking with bare feet in the light ashes
for suspected and sporadic Goals, and
others prudently mounted onstilts, which
sunk often in the spongy soil and
caused the young acrobats to descend
ANONYMOUSLY and pull them out. This
was the Mecca Of my pilgrimage, for
here the fire began. One squalid little
howell alone remained intact In all that
vast expanse. A warped and woather
beaten shanty of two rooms, perched on
49,, ,,;1aa nj Il 4,n Zoe uailad hs n tt "
down them like dirty pantalets. There
was no shabbier hut in Chicago nor in
Tipperary. But it stood there safe,
while city had persisted before and
around it. 1t was preserved by its own
destructive significance. 1t was made
sacred by the curse that rested on it,
curse more deadly than that which
darkened the lintels of the house. Of
Thyestcs. For out Of that house, last
Sunday night, came woman with a
lamp to the barn behind the house, to
milk the COW with the crumpled temper,
that kicked the lamp, that spilled the
kerosene, that fired the straw that burn
ed Chicago. And there TO this hour
stands the craven little house, holding
on tightly to its miserable existence. p
stood on the sidewalk opposite, as in
duty bound, calling up the appropriate
emotions. A strange, wrinkled face on
dwarfsh body came up and said,
"That's dhreadful sight" | assented,
and he continued in melancholy Groom:
Z Forty year I've lived here, and there
wasn't brick house bnt wan, land that
was the Lakeside House, and it, gone
now; an av yell behave me Soor,
niver see fire loike that Ibelieved
him thoroughly, and he went away. My
emotions not being satisfactory from a
front view of the shanty, ! went around
to the rear, and there found the Man Of
the House sitting with two of his friends.
His wife, Our Lady of the Lamp
freighted with heavier disaster than that
which Psyc, , carried to the bedside
Of Erosa-sat at the window, knitting. /
approached the Man Of the House and
gave him good.day. He glanced up with
sleepy furtive eyes. asked him what he
knew about the origin Of the fire. He
glanced at his friends and said, civilly,
he knew very little he was walked up
about o'clock by the alarm, and fought
from that time to save his house; at every
sentence he turned to his friends and
said, 81 cen prove it by them, to which
they nodded assent. He seemed fearful
that all Chicago was coming down upon
him for prompt and integral payment of
that $3.50 0O0,0 900 his COW had kicked
over. There was something unutterably
grotesque in this ultimate atom feeling
sense OF responsibility for a catastrophe
so stupendous, and striving, by fiction,
which must have heavily taxed his.
highest powers of imagination, to escape
reckoning he was already free from.