Year: 1871

SCENES OF WRECK AN RUIN.


CHICAGO, October 1.-THE follow


ing is furnished by correspondent OF


the New York Tribune:


'sI have just returned from the


Ghastliest promenade ever seen in the


world. From Congress street to


l. neoln Park and beyond to Wright's
grove, four miles of what was last


week the business and most vigorous
city of the West, there IS q wide
spread desolatiOn marke by scOrched
and calcined chimneys, by mounds of
glowing brick and stone, all covered
like wintery plain Whith a fall of
whitening ashes. This yastneSs and
monotony of the view is as wearisome
and depressing as that of the desert.
Formerly every quarter of the city had
its distinctive character, and along the
banks of Lake Michigan to the south
of the river rose the stately mansions
of the men whose energy and industry
had ma e Chicago what it was. Few
streets in any city could present as uni
form display of wealth and taste in
their residences as Wabash and Michi-
gan avenue. In the square bounded
on three sides by the Lake and the
Chicago river and on the south by Van
Burein street there were embraced
some of the finest business houses on
the continent, and a higher average of
beautiful and costly architecture than
had ever been applied in the world to
purpose of trade. Along the river on
either side of the tall ungainly forms
of the elevators, those molstrous
kke,0 0f !, of tho Il
West, mirrored their awkward angles
in the turbid waters, vexed by unnum-
bered keels in the North Division. The
ground to the West, occupied by larger
manufacturing establishments, and to
the east by the modest and tasteful
houses of the trading classes; all this
variety and distinction have been OBJ
liberated in a day by the hand of the
confagrati n. The loveliestgarden on
the avenue, which was just below my
window, is as squalid and miserable
with the wild tramping of the hOofs
of this d s;ister as any back yard of a
soap boiler. On Canal street the wretch
ed tenement houses which sheltered
the laboring poor, are now clean and
white in their ashes, and their CHM
nies shapeleSS monuments. There Is
equality at least, between novels and
palace in their shr0uds of desolation.
What most impresses one in the aspect
of the burnt district is lis utter loneli-
ness. The debris which numbered the
streets the day after the fire, has in
great measure been cleared away. The
sidewalks are somewhat Uttered still,
by the ruins, bat circulation is perfect
ly free throughout, that quarter.


In the centre of the city there is
certain number of curious spectators
lounging and chatting among the rag
ged and tOttering walls. There are
many of the buildings in this quarter
which were SO strongly and sOlldly
built tha; their shells still stand, stub
bornly defiant after all the fury of tn
c0nfiagration. Among these are the
Tribune Office, the Custom House, and
the Court II use, still imposing in its
ruin, which took twenty minutes to
burn. The great Pacific Hotel and the
Lyon Block attract the most attention
from the aesthetic tourists and idlers.
They are certainly very pictursqu", and
we may even say beautiful, with their
cold gray walls blotched here and there
with an angry stain of smoke, like a
patch of lichens, and showing the pale
blue of the mottled sky through their
riffs and wide windows. But hen you
get away from the centre of the town,
and cross over to the north division, 1T
is most striking to see how sudden the
silence and solitude has fallen upon this
great and once beautiful suburb. You
can drive for an hour over the smooth,
firm Nicholson pavement, very little
damaged by fire, and see scarcely liv-
ing thing in all the ashen waste. saw
an old man up to his knees in the ashes
of an extensive brewery, fishing out
some pots and kettles, He looked up
and dropped his rusty looking tin ware
as if he had been ca ght robbing
grave. A few clever fellows have al
ready invented an apparatus for lifting
safes out of the fire, and you
NAV occasionally meet them moving
about in search Of Job; bit through.
ont these miles of wide streets there is
less life and less movement than on a
country road, and the people you meet
occasionally salute each other as in a
desolate forest. The houses III this re-
gion being in great measure dwell
lings and workshops, were not so strong
ly built as in the central part of the
city, and so few walls have resisted the
fury of the flames. They have fallen
flat, and scarcely more than fill the eel
lars, so that as you drive over the
streets they seem like causeways, rais-
ed to traverse the abysses OF tire and
ashes on either side. The chief land
marks are seleton churches, whose
walls still stand open to the sunlight
and the breeze, haunting the scene like
the ghosts Of temples which have suf-
fered martyrdom. Theslim and grace
full tower of the Water Works'alsO re-
mains, domineering the plain and
guarding the entrance of that enormous
tunnel, which is the glory of Chicago.


But if you cross the ruin once more and
90 into the West Side into the portion
of the city which survives, you can un-
derstand why there Is such solitude
among the ruins. There energetic and


practical people have no time to vase
among the tombs. AS soon as the fate


of their houses and places of business


was decided they hurried over to the
quarter which still stood and began all


over again their battle with fortune.


Every available ground floor and gar


ret in Jefferson, Court and Clinton


streets and all that neighborhood, has


been seized upon by the dispOssessd es-


adjustments. The Tribune and the


Journal are there, established side by


side. The Post the Republican and


Times, have all found temporary roosts,


whence their chant OF reveille and def


ance is as loud and cheering, as ever in


their most prosperous days. The hotels


have migrated also, carrying their


names and their traditions with them.


The great business houses are crowding
| the relics of their stock into shops, thai


burst with richness, and far down
| Michigan avenue, in that safe stretch


of Lake side, that lies beyond


Michigan terrace, the last sacri