Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1891-04-07
CHICAGO THOUGHrLETS.
BILL NYE TELLS ABOUT THE THINGS
HE SAW THERE.
The Great Whitechapel Club and Its
Pleasing Exterior The We rld's Fair
and the Singing Lesson in Church-He
Still Lives After the Solo.

iCopyright, 1851, by Edgar w Nye.l
CHICAGO, His,
Toward the Gladstone Spring.
Perhaps no institution of the great,
throbbing, chin whiskered west is more
unique or more distinctive than the
Whitechapel club of this city. It is a
bright, CHEEKY little crypt, which is
reached through narrow, somber stab
in the still blacker blackness, and soon
to be called Whitechapel alley, opening
OF La Sale street. Inside al is coy
and bright. You enter by going down
several steps, and find yourself in an
anteroom, on the left of which is the tap
room and on the right the reception
vault or general sarcophagus.
Bright and CHEEKY skeletons hang up
wherever the pleased eye rambles DER
the walls, and blood spattered garments,
torn by the coroner from murdered in
nocence, soften the harsh outl mes of the
bony decorations. Skulls with phos-
phorescent eyes in them stand upon the
whatnots-or whatsnot, perhaps / should
say-here and there.
All is CHEEKY and appetizing, especially
to the weary mind and the tired and
spent brain. Here we see several white,
ghost dance garments from Wounded
Knee, upon which the blood yet looks
nice and fresh. Here is Urge west
ward hoe with which an irritated farmer
killed several of his children in an I'M
guarded moment. Over yonder is the
somewhat battered and knockkneed
charger formerly belonging to Herod's
aOTno what rnorbid 1anOb+ar
Many relics, from the early history of
crime and horror to that of the present
day, are here-here to please, to be-
guile and to perpetuate. Yonder is the
cloven helmet of a Haymarket police
man, and back of it a model o. the gal
lows on which the anarchists were
hanged
Comfortable solitude is said to be the
object of the London club, and in this
respect it is doubtless modelled after the
Whitechapel club of Chicago. Solitude,
surrounded by a wealth of brass
knuckles, highbinders' knives with fresh
gore on them, freshened each day by the
Armour abattoirs, and skeletons from
which ever and anon a vertebra, a
patella or few phalanges fall with
startling yet sodden PUNK on the dead
ened floor, may surely be found here.
The Whitechapel club of CHI cago was
endowed some two years ago by Jack
the Ripper for the purpose of engender-
ing more fraternal feeling toward hu-
mainly, and also to advance intellectual
refinement and to encourage thought
waves. Realizing the uncertainty of
life, he desired, he said, to perpetuate
his name in this way. Il might be cut
down at any time" said he, 'as my
night work, of course, is one OF constant
exposure to the unwholesome atmosphere
of London. Besides" he added, there
IS growing feeling of antagonism to-
ward me here. Sometimes ] think !
would like to try the climate Of Amer
lea, but | am afraid l would get run
over and killed by the professional
drunkards who drive drays over people
in New York, or if came to Chicago
might get 'bindged' and die of pneu-
monia. SO perhaps | am as well off
here among friends, suppressins vice and
evading the keen eyed police, as I would
be in America, where the social evil does
not as yet own the town.
do all that you can" he said, "to
make the club cheerful and bright. l
send by this steamer a gray plaid shawl,
stiff with the gore of No. 3. 1t will
make nice piano cover, think. Could
You not arrange with the city to COM
bine your dining room with the city
morgue, so that rent could be saved and
your dining hall have about it a home
like air which money alone cannot pro-
cure?
Il am almost discouraged at times
when l see how slowly l am getting
along with my great work looking to-
ward the suppression of vice, but will
80 INA D