The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1892-03-09
THE HURRY IN CHICAGO.
THE WESTERN METROPOLIS A
SCENE OF CONSTANT BUSTLEi


SCENE OF CONSTANT BUSTLE,
All the Business of Life Goes on at
HlEh Pressure-"Expre Eleva-
tors and Swift Cable Cars,
l have spoken of the roar and hustle
and energy Of Chicago, writes Julian
Ralph id Harper's Magazine. This is
most noticeable in the business portion
of the town, where the greater number
of the men are crowded together. 1t
seems there rs if the men would run over
the horses if the drivers were not care
full. Everybody is in such hurry and
going at such pace that il stranger
asks his way, he is apt to have to trot
along with his neighbor to gain the in.
formation, for the average Cmcagoau
cannot stop to talk. The whole busi-
ness of life is carried on at high pres-
sure, and the pithy part of Chicago is
like three hundred acres Of New York
Stock Exchange when trading is active.
European visitors have written that there
are no such crowds anywhere as gather
on Broadway, New York, and this is
true most of the time; but there is one
hour on every weekday when certain
streets in Chicago are so packed with
people as to make Broadway look DESC
late and solitu2inous by comparison.
That is the hour between hah.past five
and half-past six O'Clock, when the
famous tall buildings OF the city vomit
their inhabitants upon the pavemcnts.
Photographs of the principal corners
and crossings, taking Mt the height of
the human torrent, suggest the thought
that the camera must have been turned
on some little-known painting by Dore.
Nobody but Dore every conceived such
pictures. To those who are IN the
crowds, even Chicago seems small and
cramped; even her streets that connect
horizon with horizon seem each night to
roar at the city officials for further au-
nexation in the morning.
In the tall buildings arc the most
modern and rapid elevators, machines
that fly up through the towers like glass
balls from a trap at n shooting contest.
The slow-going stranger, who is con-
scious of having been "kneaded" along
the streets, like lump Of dough among
a million bakers, feels himself loaded
into one of those frail-looking baskets of
steel netting, and the next instant the
elevator boy touches the trigger, and up
goes the whole load as feather S caught
up by a gale. The decent is more
simple. Something let's go, and you fall
from ten to twenty stories as it happens,
There is sometimes a jolt, which makes
the passenger seem to feel his stomach
pass into his shoes, but, as a rule, the
mechanism and management both work
marvelously toward ease and gentleness.
These elevators are too slow for Chicago,
and the managers of certain tall build.
ings now arrange them so that some run
''express" to the seventh story without
stopping, while what may be called
accommodation cars halt at the lower
floors, pursuing course that may be
likened to the emptying of the chambers
of revolver in the hands of person
who is "quici on the trigger" 1t is
the same everywhere in the business dis
trict. Along Clark street are some
gorgeous underground restaurants, all
marble and plated metal. Whoever is
eating at one of the tables in them will
see the ushers standing about like statues
until customer enters the door, when
they dart forward rs if the building were
falling. 1t is only done in order to seat
the visitor promptly. Being of sym
pathetic and impressiouable nature, |
bolted along the streets all the time
was there as if some one on the next
block had picked my pocket.
In the Auditorium Hotel the guests
communicate with the clerk by electric.
ity, and may flash word of their thirst
to the bartender as lightning dances
from the top to the bottom of steeple.
A sort of annlnciator is used, and by
turning an arrow and pressinga button,
a man may in half minute order cock
tail, towels, ice-water, stationery, dinner,
a bootblack, and the evening news
papers. Our h orse-c cars in New York
move at the rate of about six miles an
hour. The cable cars of Chicago make
more than nine miles an hour in town,
where the population is less dense. They
90 in trains of two cars each, and with
such racket of gong-ringng and such
a grinding and whir Of grip-wheels as to
make a modern vestibuled train seem Il
waste of the opportunities for noise. But
these cars distribute the people grandly,
and while they occasionally run over a
stray citizen, they far more frequently
clear their way by lifting wagons and
trucks bodily to one side as they whirl
along. 1t is a rapid and business-like
city. The speed with which cattle are
killed and pigs are turned into slabs of
salt pork has amazed the world but it is
only the ignorant portion thereof that
does not know that the celerity at the
stock-yards is merely an effort OF the
butchers to keep up with the rest Of the
town. The only slow things in Chicago
are the steam railway ins.--Harper's
Magazine.