iron, wooden mansard upper stories slightly covered with slate, and wooden roofs slightly covered with tarred paper having a veneer of gravel. Its wooden pavements were not very inflammable, but it had miles of pine plank sidewalks which, being laid along streets whereof the grade had been raised, were usually several feet above the ground they covered, and thus made a fire-carrier such as a powder-fuse might envy.

The part of the conspiracy assigned to a lamp in a cow's stable and a clovenhoofed beast near by, if indeed they had any part in it, need not be dwelt upon.

The devil, however, must be given due credit. He chose his favorite weapon of destruction drink. The largest fire Chicago had ever experienced up to that time occurred on Saturday night, October 7. Acres of wooden buildings and lumber-yards were swept away; and, as there were numberless liquor saloons in the range, the firemen were either "hospitably entreated" by the proprietors, or entered unmolested into rum-shops whence the owners had fled before the advancing flames. Nevertheless, the men, drunk or sober, fought well enough to keep the flames of the Saturday fire from spreading except directly to leeward-northeastward-in which direction the river barred the way, and that night the fire did not cross. It reserved its great achievement till the next day, when it should have recovered its appetite.

Next day was Sunday, to all a holiday, though to many not a holy day. The exhausted firemen had a fair excuse for wishing to recruit their strength, and they shared the absurd idea that strength of beverage has some

thing to do with strength of bodysome congenial relationship a truly devilish delusion. Eau de vie is not the Water of Life, quite the contrary; these two are not only aliens they are antipodes.

House now standing where the great Fire originated.

fire-engines (whereof 3 were in the repair-shop and others should have been there), 60 hose carts, hook-and-ladder trucks, etc., and 48,000 feet of hose. The force was the sport of party politics, and naturally without unity, esprit de corps, or efficient discipline. I

The street mains, incredible as it may seem, were to a great extent only four

At best, the entire fire department of this sprawling wooden city of 330,000 inhabitants consisted of 200 men, 17 steam

inches in diameter, and no sooner were two engines drawing from any one length of these trifling pipes than its entire supply was in use.

In short, the arrangements were perfected for a great fire

the fuel, the drought, the gale, aided and abetted an unimaginable. faultiness in the means for opposing this tripartite alliance. It scarcely

needed the remarkable run of "bad luck"

Compare this beggarly outfit with the present equipment, given farther on.

I

Door of Republic Insurance Co. Building (still standing).

N 1871, a conspiracy was formed against the young, frail, vain, boastful, foolish, prosperous, hopeful city of Chicago, - the conspirators being the drought, the southwest trade-wind, a lamp, a cow, and the devil.

The drought got in its work first, beginning its operations on July 4, that being the day following the last whereon a reasonable rain - one and a half inches -fell, until after October 9, when the conspiracy culminated in the "overt act." This interval is ninety-eight days - fourteen weeks during which, in all, only one and four-tenths inches of rain fell; about the equivalent of a single, good downpour from a thunder-cloud. Such a state of things, if persistent, would turn the Grand Prairie into a Sahara, would lay the broad land prostrate, would reverse the westward current of human migration, and unsettle the business of the world.

The southwest wind was not far behind the inclement sunshine in its unfriendly ministrations. With a Judas kiss it sucked the moisture from the parching soil till it grew so inflammable that a

common prairie fire would dig below the surface and leave, instead of the usual blackened grass-roots, only a bed of white ashes. The majestic corn-plant itself, with its long tap-root and measureless earth penetrating fibres, could scarcely find enough moisture to fill its kernels before they ripened and hardened under the pitiless sky of day and the dewless vault of night. A chance spark would set a great farm in a blaze, "grass burned in the field, hay in the stack, grain in the rick, and corn in the shock ;' and that autumn there were miles, townships, counties, in the northern pine forests, that were swept away - trees, houses, fences, sawmills, villages, with all living things, human and brute alike, in a tumult of flame and sound that made a perfect illustration of the

Dies ira, dies illa,

Solvet sæclum in favilla.

That southwest wind is always the prevailing breeze through Illinois. Every pliable tree bears witness to its almost ceaseless sway, for every branch and twig, no matter how it starts, ends by a distinct and permanent inclination to the northeastward. Indeed, so strong and persistent is it, that it moulds the shores of Lake Michigan by keeping a constant current northward along its eastern edge, supplied by a counter-current southward along the western shore, where the bank protects the water's surface. The waves form in mid-lake and dash diagonally on the leeward land; while along the sheltered west shore there is a continual wash of sand southward, troubling every harbor with bars, and gradually filling up the southern end of the lake.

So the sun shone and the wind blew. The city grew dryer and more tindery every day, for it was foolishly built. Nine-tenths of the structures were all of wood; and the other tenth had wooden cornices slightly covered with galvanized 1 In the Peshtigo lumbering region, for instance. It is estimated that in Northern Wisconsin and Northern Michigan a thousand persons lost their lives.

iron, wooden mansard upper stories slightly covered with slate, and wooden roofs slightly covered with tarred paper having a veneer of gravel. Its wooden pavements were not very inflammable, but it had miles of pine plank sidewalks which, being laid along streets whereof the grade had been raised, were usually several feet above the ground they covered, and thus made a fire-carrier such as a powder-fuse might envy.

The part of the conspiracy assigned to a lamp in a cow's stable and a clovenhoofed beast near by, if indeed they had any part in it, need not be dwelt upon. The devil, however, must be given due credit. He chose his favorite weapon of destruction drink. The largest fire Chicago had ever experienced up to that time occurred on Saturday night, October 7. Acres of wooden buildings and lumber-yards were swept away; and, as there were numberless liquor saloons in the range, the firemen were either "hospitably entreated" by the proprietors, or entered unmolested into rum-shops whence the owners had fled before the advancing flames. Nevertheless, the men, drunk or sober, fought well enough to keep the flames of the Saturday fire from spreading except directly to leeward-northeastward-in which direction the river barred the way, and that night the fire did not cross. It reserved its great achievement till the next day, when it should have recovered its appetite.

Next day was Sunday, to all a holiday, though to many not a holy day. The exhausted firemen had a fair excuse for wishing to recruit their strength, and they shared the absurd idea that strength of beverage has some thing to do with strength of bodysome congenial relationship a truly devilish delusion. Eau de vie is not the Water of Life, quite the contrary; these two are not only aliens they are antipodes.

In short, the arrangements were perfected for a great fire

the fuel, the drought, the gale, aided and abetted an unimaginable faultiness in the means for opposing this tripartite alliance. It scarcely needed the remarkable run of "bad luck "

At best, the entire fire department of this sprawling wooden city of 330,000 inhabitants consisted of 200 men, 17 steam

1 Compare this beggarly outfit with the present equipment, given farther on.