Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1871-11-11
The Chicago Ruins at Midnight.


A midnight walk through the burnt
district of Chicago reveals scenes of the
most peculiar character, and in strange
contrast to the appearance presented by
daylight. They are scenes to which no
etching can do justice; there are colors
that never can be transferred to canvas,
and there is an awe-inspiriug influence
in the strange contigurations every
where presented to the eye that words
cannot picture. The grandeur of the
majestic ruins can be appreciated by
daylight, but the strangest, most weird
effect is produced by the fickering
shadows of night, encanting yet repug-
nant, calling up flood of emotions
never inspired by ruins resulting from
the mutations of centuries and the
natural process of decay.
By nightfall the bustling, hurrying
throng that from the first dawn of day
perambulate the streets, lately vocal
with the hum of commerce, intent on
business or attracted by curiosity, has
disappeared, save few belated wander
ers, and these are rapidly hurting to
their homes. Save the occasional tinkle
of the street-car bells or the rattle of
the omnibuses, silence reigns so pro-
found as to be startling. By midnight
the buses have disappeared, and the
Naturalization is only heard at rare
intervals. The dreary waste is depopu-
lated, save here and there solitary
guard who mechanically PAGES his
allotted round. A promenade at such
time, though unpleasantly suggestive to
a person imbued with ever so little
fancy for the dismally picturesque
scenes to be met, will not prove I'M
profitable, but it is not specially recon-.
mended to any person of weak nerves
or at all predisposed to hysteria.
The traveller approaching from the
south sees the dim outlines of the fan
tastic shapes resting upon the cerulean
background, much as he has noticed
them by the bright sunlight. With Il
subdued feeling, strange fancies fitting
through his brain, he continues his
walk. The moon looks benignly down
upon the strange scene to which she is
yet unaccustomed, casting dim, but dis,
tinguishable, shadows among the monu-
mental piles, the sole remaining evil
dences of Chicago's greatness. The
moss-covered relics of some ancient
metropolis, the link connecting the
present with the forgotten ages, of
which he has read or which he has seen
pictured by some master hand, or may
hap, has gazed upon in the sunny
orient, recur to him, and, passing the
scraggy outlines of some wreck more
prominent than the rest, he involunta-
rily listens for the boot of the tradi-
tional owl to complete the semblance.
Days have passed since the terrible day
of doom on which the knell of the city
was sounded, but still thousand fires
are smoldering amid the rains, keeping
up their pale lights in ghostly mimicry
of the antics of the unfettered demon.
Here and there over some burning coal
pile, or fed by the imprisoned gases,
pale blue lights flicker, and dance, and
laugh in the solitude made more drear
by the dismal light and their noisome
exhalations. These lights, unobserved !
in the daytime, like will-o' -the-wsps
lowering over the piles of brick and
stone, may be counted by the hundreds
within the area of few blocks, and |
produce most strange and curious
effect.
Approaching the western portion of
the devastated district, the dozen i'm
mense coal piles, burning with steady,
glow, lend their effect,
casting long and welldefined shadows,
and immensely frightening the mourn
full grandeur of the scene. AS we sp-
proach nearer, their lurid glow, dis
tinctly visible for miles, grows brighter
and brighter, lighting up the river for
miles almost with the clearness of day.
Such is Chicago at midnight,