The Bessemer indicator., 1893-02-25
BurLDERs IN CONVENTION.
Important National 0Athsripg In St
Louis-PIans for the Fall

Exposition.
ST. LOUIS, Feb. 17.-The convention
Of builders, which has been in session
here this week, has been closely
watched by architects nll over tho
country. Tue convention brought
something like Thousand people to
the city who were interested in archi-
lecture and building All of the dele.
gates spent an afternoon going through
the big business buildings Of st. Louis,
and examining from carriages, as they
rode along the boulcvards tho hand
soonest private residences of tho city.
The convention took very strong
ground against the National policy of
trusting important public work in the
hands of political architects" us
Charles Dudley Warner calls them in
his article on the Worlds Fair build
ings in Harper's. protesting that it en-
couraged extravaganza, and gave the
country ugly and unworthy govern
ment buildings.
For some time work has been stopped
on the comprehensive system OF boulc-
wards planned for the city last year,
and it has required legislation
authorizing m additional taxation of
the property that would be benefited
to get tho money to carry out the
plans. The property owners affected
were willing enough to pay the small
extra cost the boulevard building
would have imposed on them, but the
law would not allow the tax to be col
lcctcd, and SO in this legislature the
unique spectacle was presented of the
owners of land begging for the
imposition of greater tax on their
ground in order that it's value might
be increased. Now, the money being
secured, work on the new boulcvards
will be pushed vigorously as soon as
spring fairly opens. and by the end OF
summer it will be possible for man to
drive over smooth asphalt and telford
paving for twenty miles without get
ting out of the city.
The managers of the st. Louis Expo-
sition have just made an arrangement
with the Worlds Fair directors by
which the art gallery of the great cx-
hibition here will get the benefit of
the finest of the pictures sent TO the
Fair by painters in this country and
others. Paintings will be exchanged
between st. Louis and the gallery of
the World Fair. The arrangement is
very costly one TO the exposition, but
it promises much better results than
the old way of borrowing few pict-
urcs here and there from private gal
lcries in different cities, and then
filling up the rest of the space with
paintings that were for sale by the
artists. By the new plan visitors to
the Exposition here will be able to see
the very best works of art from the
galleries of all the great cities of the
United States as well as Europe
From this time till the end of the
year, the Health Department of the
city and the Citizens Sanitary Com
mittee will spend over half Il million
dollars in carrying out the sanitary
plans that were made last year. 1t is
intended to make the streets, alleys
and vacant lots of the city so clean
that not only will it be impossible for
any epidemic disease to break out here
during the summer and fall, but more
than that, the intelligence of the
wholesome condition of the city, going
abroad, will reassure timid people who
have not yet recovered from the
cholera scare of last season in New
York, and will convince them that in
st. Louis they will be protected against
any sort of danger to their health. The
widest publicity is to be given to this
sanitary campaign, and it will be sure
to leave st Louis the best guarded city
in tho country, in the event that any
plague from foreign shores comes this
way