Year: 1871

to visit Chicago from mere curiosity, fron


coming. Thousands of this class are her


now thronging the streets, without shelte


or accommodation, and who must be fel


q nd cared for the same as the sufferers.


Tine Great Desert,


The following is furnished correspon


dent of the New York Tribune: hav'


just returned from the ghastlest promen


ade ever seen in the world. From


Congress street to Lincoln Park and beyond


to Wright's Grove, four miles of what wa


last week the business and most vigorou:
| city of Che West, there is now one wide


spread desolation, marked by scorched and


calcined GIimneys, by mounds Of
glowing brick and stone, all covered


like a wintry plain with a fall oi


whitening ashes. The vastness and monoto.


ny Of the view is as wearisome and depress-


ing as that of the desert. Formerly every


quarter of the city had its distinctive char


acter, and along the banks of Lake Michi-


gan, TO the south of the river, rose the state


ly mansions of the men whose energy and


industry made Chicago what it was. Few


streets in any city could present so uniform


a display of wealth and taste in their


residences as Wabash and Michigan ave-


nues. In the space consumed on three


sides by the Lake aud Chicago river, and


on the south by Van Buren street, there


were embraced some of the finest business


houses on the continent, and higher aver
age of beautiful and costly architecture than
had ever been applied in the world to pur-
poses of trade. Along the river on either
slide the tall ungainly forms of the eleva-
tors, those monstrous growths of the COM
mercc of the Northwest mirrowed their
awkward angles in the turbid water in
view of unnumbered keels. In the north
division the ground to the west was occupied
by large manufacturing establishments, and
to the east by the modest and tasteful
houses of the trading classes. All this va
riety and distinction has been obliterated in
day by the leveling hand of the conflagra-
ton. The lOveliest garden on the avenue,
just below my window, is as sqJIalid and
miserable with the wild trampling of the
hoOfs of this disaster as any back yard of a
soap boiler on Canal street. The wretched
tenement houses which sheltered the labor
ing poor are now clean and white in their
ashes and their chimneys form shapeless
monument. There is equality at last be-
tween hOvel and palace in their shrouds of
desolation. What most impresses one in
the aspect of the burnt district is its
utter loneliness. The debris which encam-
bered the streets the day after the fire
has in great measure been cleared away.
The sidewalks are samewhat Uttered still
by the ruins, but the circulation is perfectly
free throughout the quarter. In the centre
OF the city there is a certain number of
curious spectators lounging and chatting
among the rugged and tottering walls. There
are many of the buildings in this quarter
which were so strongly built that their
shells still stand stubbOrnly defiant after all
the fury of the confagration as the Tribune
office and the customhouse. The court
house is still imposing in its mien which it
took twenty years to build and twenty
minutes to burn. The Great Pacific hotel
and the Lyon block attract most attention
from the aesthetic tourists and idlers. They
are certainly very picturesque and one may
even say beautiful with their cold gray
walls blotched here and Herewith
an angry stain of smoke like a patch of
lichers and pale blue of the mottled sky
through their riffs and wide windows. But
when you get away from the center of the
town and across over to the North Division,
it is most striking to see how sudden a
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 the fire, and see scarcely
living thing in all the ashen waste. | saw
an old man up to his knees in the ashes of
an extensive building, fishing out some pots
and kettles. He looked up and dropped
his ruIsty-lOOking tinware as if he had been
caupht rObbing grave. A few clever fel-
lows have already invented an apparatus
far lifting safes out of the fire, and you may
occasionally meet them moving about in
search of job. But through
put these wide miles of
wide streets there is less life, leas move
ment than in a country road and the peo-
pie who meet unconsciOusly salute each
other as in a desOlate forest. The houses
in this region being in a great measure
dwelling and workshops, were
not so strongly built as in the cen
raj part of the city and so the few walls
resisted the fury of the flames, they have
allen flat and scarcely more than fill the
cellars, so that as you drive over the streets
hey seem like eauseways raised to traverse



The chief landmarks are the skeleton
whose walls still stand open to
he sunlight and the breeze like the ghosts
Of the temples which have suffered martyr
lOm. The slim and graceful tower
Of the waterworks also remains-dOmineer-
ng the stricken plain and guarding the en-
rance of the enormous tunnel, which is the
glory of Chicago. But if you cross the
river once more and go into the west side
into that portion of the city which survives,
you can understand why there is such
solitude among the ruins. These energetic
and pract cal people have no time to waste
among the tombs. As soon as the fate of
their houses and places of business was de-
cided, they hurried over to the quarter
which still stood, and began all
over again their battle with fortune. Every
available ground floor and garret in Jeffer-
son, Court and Clinton streets, and all that
have been seized on by the
establishments. The Tribune
and the Journal are there, established side
by side. The Post, the Republican, and
the Times have all found temporary roosts,
whence their chant of reveille and defiance
Is as loud and cheering as ever in their most
days.


The hotels have migrated also, carving
their names and their traditions with them
them. The great business houses are
the relics of their stock into shops
That burst with richness, and far down
avenue, in that safe stretch of
lake side that lies beyond Michigan terrace.
5he last and loveliest sacrifice to the flames,
you see the names of banks and insurance
hastily scrawled on tin shingles
and hung at the doors of decorous private
houses. On the low sand beach that lies
below Michigan avenue, they have projected
4 line of temporary business houses, and the
first Of them went up all at once and as quick
y as a house of cards, under nv window
his evening. A dozen will probably be
Duilt tomorrow. There seems to be TO
no ostentatious pluck and audaci
", but a resolute manly intention to make
he most of bad situation. These superb
merchants and business men do not seem TO
.hink there is anything fine in their attitude
Dut the world will certainly not
leny them its hearty admiration


The city is orderly and tranquil; the hun
.ry are fed and the naked are clothed. The
churches and public buildings OF the West
side give shelter to the homeless. The rail
ways convey to their friends all who desire
20 go. The best people devoutly trust that
she time of the severest stress of the panic
IS over.


CINCINNATI.