W

HEN the traveller approaches the city of London, the first object which meets his gaze, in surveying it from a distance, is the stately dome of St. Paul's Cathedral. A nearer approach brings into view the less stately temples and public buildings, the House of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. In approaching Paris, the most conspicuous objects are the towers of Notre Dame and the glistening dome of the Invalides. Long before aught else is visible of the imperial city of Rome, the towering dome of St. Peter's arrests attention. And so with most of the great cities of the old world; the buildings of greatest magnitude and grandeur are the public or government buildings and temples of worship.

Tower of the Auditorium.

In approaching the city of Chicago, the conspicuous objects are the massive temples of trade and commerce, the vast warehouses for the storage of grain, the lofty office buildings, or the great Auditorium, where even the most superb tem

ple of the Muses and Graces which the world has seen, in its hotel and office annex, is made to subserve the purposes of commerce. The contrast is thus striking and significant, illustrating the fact that in the first development of a city, as in an individual, business transcends in importance the questions of religion and art. We are taught that the body is of small importance as compared with the mind and the soul, yet the body is far more clamorous in its demands; and, as neither a statesman, a seer, poet, nor a human soul can be satisfactorily matured without a body, material wants must first be met.

Chicago is a city of magnificent distances, its extreme length, north and south, along the shore of Lake Michigan, being twenty-four miles, and its width varying from five to ten miles. The heart of Chicago, however, by which is meant its business centre, is comprised in an area something over half a mile square, extending from the main Chicago River south as far as Harrison Street, and from Michigan Avenue west to the south branch of the river. The city thus stands in striking and absolute contrast to the sympathetic and sentimental Mrs. Skewton, who, as the readers of Dickens will remember, herself admitted that she was "all heart." Considered, however, in reference to its accessibility by water and by land to all the principal lines of trans

portation, the heart of Chicago, like that of the martyred Lincoln, is unquestionably in the right place.

On its northern border is the Chicago River, where are the landings of the steamboat lines radiating from Chicago to all the principal ports of the Great Lakes. In its early days, before the city was reached by railways, its business was largely conducted by water, and South Water Street, along the bank of the Chicago River, was its first, and for many years, its only business street. On its west, south, and east sides are the terminals of all the railroads of this greatest railroad centre in the world, so that the passengers reaching the city by any method of public conveyance are landed in immediate proximity to the very heart of the city; in fact, the large amount of room acquired for these railroad terminals immediately about the business centre has a tendency to prevent its enlargement toward the south, which would be its natural direction of growth.

Many people unfamiliar with Chicago are puzzled by the designations, "North," South," and "West Divisions"; but these terms will be immediately explained by a glance at the map, which will also show the location of the business centre of the city. It will be seen

that the river, with its branches, is something like the letter "Y," the main river being about three quarters of a mile in length, when it divides into two streams known as the North and South branches. The territory north of the main river and lying between its North branch and Lake Michigan, forms the "North Division." South of the main river and lying between the

South branch and the lake is the "South Division," and the area lying west of the North and South branches is the "West Division." The heart of the city is in the north end of the South Division. This territory was entirely burned over at the time of the great fire, so that none of its construction dates back of the year 1872.

As is the case in most large cities, the

The W. C. T. U. Building.

This street is almost entirely given over to the sale of fruits, garden, and farm produce. These products arrive in the city partly by team from market gardens in the vicinity, but more largely by rail and water, and are delivered to the hundred or two small stores on both sides of South Water Street. This street is about half a mile in length, and is at all hours a most interesting and picturesque pandemonium. The sidewalks are packed with boxes and barrels, among which thousands of people elbow their several ways, and the street is so filled with teams that one wonders how any can ever be extricated. There are thousands of small markets and grocery houses in all parts of the city, and from each of these places come express wagons from morning until night to distribute throughout the city the South Water Street wares. Of perishable fruits and vegetables, nearly all received in the morning are sold during the day. On this street may be seen the

toes, in butter of all grades, from delicious freshness to extraordinary power, in eggs old and young, in artichokes, celery, and pineapples, in peanuts and popcorn, here traffic side by side in interminable confusion and endless hurly-burly.

The traders on South Water Street, in addition to supplying the million and one half people in Chicago and its suburbs with their fruit, their garden, poultry, and dairy products, supply at least as many more in the outlying towns, sending the early products of the South as far west and north as Omaha and Winnipeg, and in like manner distributing northern products throughout the territory between Chicago and the Gulf of Mexico. Over fifteen thousand carloads of California products alone were last year distributed from this tumultuous centre. Forty or fifty carloads of bananas are not an unusual daily delivery, and on one gala day a year or two ago, one hundred and forty thousand half

perishable products, for New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and intermediate points, from this same crowded thoroughfare. The next street south, is Lake Street, running substantially parallel with South Water, and this street is substantially given over to the leather and hardware trades.

The office district commences at Randolph Street, the next street south of the Lake, and extends southward to Harrison Street, occupying a large proportion of the frontage on Dearborn, Clark, and La Salle Streets. The territory between Dearborn Street and Michigan Avenue is largely occupied by retail dry goods merchants and dealers in fancy articles of merchandise. West of the office district are the wholesale merchants of various kinds, although the wholesale grocers are largely upon Michigan and Wabash Avenues between South Water and Washington Streets, and the wholesale millinery establishments upon Wabash Avenue south of Washington Street.

In the district described are over twelve hundred tall chimneys and over two thousand steam boilers. A large wholesale house or office building consumes for heating purposes and the running of its elevators as much steam power