, 1872-11-12

| these will be promptly restored. While
the losses occur in the portion Of the
city in which the totals loom ur
| largest, they render very few people homeless
| they bankrupt comparatively few small traders
and, so far as Inconvenience may visit the labor.
ing class, they will soon be forgotten in tie in
| creased wages which will result from the ex-
penditure Of forty or fifty millions in rebuilding
the burnt district, and Of like further sum in
restoring the destroyed goods, 4 large portion
Of which we're Of New England manufacture
In all these particulars Chicago was at O. dis
advantage, compared with Boston, which even
the late appalling calamity will but feebly aid
the latter to appreciate. We had lost our public
records, and therein nearly all the evidences
Of title to all the 1nnds, not only in the
burned district but outside Of it. We had &C, 900
homeless poor, not few of whom had been ac-
customed to homes Of luxury aud lives of ease.
The area burned over WAS twenty-nine times aa
great as that burned in Boston, and, though
cupicd, yet it was al occupied by something.
About three hundred acres Of our business dis
trict would compare somewhnt favorabIy in
compactness, and in the permanence and dura-
bility Of our buildings, with the hundred acres
burned in Boston, though no portion of our city
had 80 narrow streets, or so generally high
structures. Even prior to the fire We had been
large borrowers of foreign capital, while
Boston even after rebuilding, will be
large lender Of capital to other
cities and sections. Our public buildings more
than half our churches, nearly all our hotels, all
our wholesale houses Of every kind, all our
banks, insurance companies, newspapers, rail-
road depotg, and commercial houses generally,
we're burned out, and over more than third Of
our city, including the very heart Of it. Moth
ing wasleft bu pavements, and pluck. Boston
has had severe fire, but We heartily congratu-
late the IL Hub on being spared from calamity
that cal rival our own Of last year. Yet We al
ready begin to see, in the rebuilding Of Chicago,
the rise Of city more uniformly elegant, CON-
modious, imposing, and agreeable as
place of business and Of residence, than
could erer have occupied this site
but for the fire. We have not
yet reached tie point where the fire ap-
pears essential to our prosperity, or even
blessing Of any sort in disguise. Yot nc do
perceive that, at a day not distant, our city will
be a far nobler one, architectural1y, than it
could have been without the fire.
But, while We have been compelled to plunge
deeply into debt to restore our position Boston
can call in the capital necessary for her wants
by selling some of her Government, railway,
and State bonds. The sixty or seventy millions
will come to her On the street the moment she
asks for it. Her great publishing houses,
newspapers, hotels, public buildings,
record Offices, banks and two-thirds Of
her mercantile houses are untouched.
She has no reason, therefore, for despair, and
will not feel bowed by her disaster. She Hill do
well to wipe out Some Of her crooked lanes and
cow-paths, throw their space into few broader
fre-proof buildings. Let her abiure all wooden
roofs and all Mansards, all wooden floors, parti-
tions, beams, girders, and supports Of every
kind. Let her make her buildings actually fire.
proof by using in their construction the very
minimum Of combustible matter,-iron, slate,
tile roofs, tile floors, and iron ceilings and sup
ports. Rebuilt in this style, Boston would, in
few years. grave1y doubt whether her great fire
was disaster, OF whether it was an indispensa-
BILE condition to the needed improvement Of tho |