Chapter VII: To the West

Buffalo -- Cleveland -- Magnificent Muldoon -- Euclid
Avenue -- Toledo -- Detroit -- Chicago -- Jefferson Davis
-- A Terrible Moment -- Pullman -- Milwaukee -- St. Paul
-- Minneapolis -- Le Mars -- Sioux City -- Kansas City --
The Parting.

Although there is now only one attendant with the party--the omniscient Edward--the baggage-master does his work so well, the conductor of the train is so active, and the service so perfect, that there is never any hitch about luggage arriving or leaving. Every one is sure to find his property in his room, and to find it at the station in time.

The line of the New York Central Railroad was in very good order, and our special, preceded by the "Pony" engine of Mr. Burrows, the Superintendent of the Division, on which the Duke, Lady Green, and I travelled for a time, arrived at Buffalo at half-past 12 o'clock. Between Magna and a station named Tonawanda, I think, which is more than eleven miles, the "Pony" trotted us over the line in ten minutes. I cannot do justice to the kindness of all the gentlemen, representing the New York Central and Hudson Railway, and the Lake Shore and Michigan Railway, who accompanied us, because I do not recollect their names; but they were so anxious that we should see everything they considered worthy of notice, that no sooner had the train arrived at the Buffalo station than we were driven off in four carriages, under the control of Mr. Caldwell, who was described as General Manager of the Red River Transportation Company, to visit the streets, avenues, and manufactories, which are the main attractions, and could do no more than look at the lunch which was laid out for us in the Central Dining Rooms. I say "us"; but I am bound to admit that the charms of Buffalo did not tempt some of the party to go out. A stove factory exhibited so many excellent contrivances, that the Duke gave an order for some of the sort we saw at Clifton House, which rejoice, as I have said, in the name of "Crowning Glory," and other members of the party followed his example. The Roscoe, Conkling and Platt storm was now raging furiously. One would have thought the Union was in the death-throes. Wherever men met it was the main topic of conversation, the papers teemed with articles and telegrams, and we were constantly asked what we thought about it, and we as constantly declined to say we thought at all. Whilst Mr. Bickersteth and I sat reading the papers in the palace car, awaiting the Duke, a smart lad came in on us _sans cérémonie_, and introduced himself as the representative of a Buffalo paper. He hungered exceedingly for the Duke, but meantime fell upon us; and next day I was astonished to find I had declared "Roscoe was undoubtedly a statesman, but he had gone beyond his boundary." Poor Mr. Bickersteth fared worse, for he was accused of want of "respect for American reporters," as the following report of the conversation with him will show:

_Reporter._--"Mr. Bickersteth, will you please give me your full name and special title?"

_Mr. B._--"I do not know that I am obliged to."

_Reporter._--"Of course not. Just as you feel about it."

_Mr. B._--"Well" (putting a third eye on the interrogator), "you American reporters are devilishly fresh, you know." (Buffalo paper.)

Our friends escaped the inquisitor. At 3 o'clock they returned to the Buffalo station, and we continued our career by the Lake Shore Railway to Cleveland. A new set of acquaintances, guardians, officials, and friends in the form of directors, railway engineers, and local authorities accompanied the Duke. Dinner was served in one of the carriages as we travelled. The little side-tables between the centre thoroughfare accommodate two persons very comfortably, and the manner in which the coloured waiters attended was irreproachable.

At 6 o'clock we reached Cleveland, and the Duke and his party were undignified enough to walk to Kennard House, instead of taking the carriages which were in readiness for us. One disadvantage of dining in the train was experienced when we arrived at the hotel. There was nothing to do; so the Duke and I took a stroll down the main street, and were surprised to find one side of it lighted by electricity, and to see several large shops illuminated on the Brush system in the same way. On our return to the hotel, a gentleman in the hall suggested that we should go and see an exhibition of sparring by "Muldoon--the most magnificent specimen of humanity ever born of woman!" and not wishing to lose such a chance, and animated moreover by the promise that we should see Muldoon go through his famous performances as a "Classical Athlete," we set out under the guidance of a coloured domestic of the hotel to the scene of these enjoyments, the rooms of a gymnasium, which proved to be up a long flight of stairs, in a dingy house, in a back street. Our dark guide, who was sent in advance to secure places, met us on the steps with the news that "Muldoon" had gone, but that we might see the gymnasium if we pleased. Without our "Classical Athlete" there was no attraction for us, and we turned to go home; but, passing by the entrance to a building with an illuminated announcement that it was the "Theatre Comique," and assured by our _valet de place_ that it was "a very nice place," we turned in, passed a bar, paid fifty cents, or two shillings, for a private box, and were conducted over a shaky floor behind the scenes to our _loge_, from which we surveyed such an audience as one might find in a "penny gaff" nearer home. Our attendant, on leaving, advised us to bolt the door inside. The reason for the precaution was soon evident, for the ladies whose presence was not needed on the stage at the time, in pursuance, it would seem, of the recognised custom at the Theatre Comique, came thundering at the door, and were only appeased by economical libations of beer--and so we escaped to Kennard House, and to bed.

Early in the forenoon (April 19th), before we had well done breakfast, the Mayor, Mr. Herrick, Messrs. Mason, Stone, Wade, Colonel Wilson, and a goodly company of Cleveland citizens of repute, called on the Duke to take him and those of the party who were so minded to visit the oil-works, elevators, and the city generally, to drive up Euclid Avenue, and inspect one or two of the fine houses of which they were with reason proud. The Mayor had evidently something on his mind--he had the air of a man with a care of State affecting him--and after a time the truth was known. His Worship, or His Honour, was as well informed as a Sous-Préfet or a Commissaire of Bureau III.--a very Howard Vincent--and he had heard of our visit to the theatre, and was anxious to explain that it was not one of the regular orthodox Temples of Thespis; that, in fact, it was a blot on the purity of Cleveland, and on the powers of the executive. But "the Forest City," as Cleveland is termed, can tolerate a great deal of imputation, and yet lift up its head proudly as a beautiful and almost unique creation of the American genius--the fairy who turns turnips into coaches and four, mice into _valets de place_, and dreary marshes into the sites of noble towns, replete with all the developments of the most refined civilisation (in which, however, I do not include our magnificent muscular Classical but Christian athlete Muldoon and the reprobate theatre we had visited).

The Cleveland papers were not all very civil--some of them, indeed, were not only uncivil, but untruthful in their accounts of the Duke's party. There were "imaginary conversations" reported, that in all but wit and interest would have done credit to Walter Savage Landor.

At the beginning of this century there were but a few wooden houses to justify the selection of the site of a city laid out in 1794. Fifty years ago there were 1000 souls in Cleveland. But the Canal opened to it the fountains of life, and there are now about 170,000 people in this handsome, well-to-do city.

I hope that other people bear the souvenirs of their disasters in characters of paint, brass, and iron, in monuments of stone and the _ære perennius_ records of history, as well as the normal Briton, who is met in the United States with "_Io triumphes_" over his race in all kinds of metals and forms. I turned me out of Kennard Hotel, and found myself in a fine square, surrounded by shops and important edifices, and, gravitating towards a statue, I was obliged to recognise the effigies of Commodore Perry, who swept Lake Erie as clear of King George's flotilla as erst did Van Tromp "_balaye_" the Channel of the ships of the Stuart. Then I recoiled against a cannon, and was brought up all standing by the inscription which recorded another disaster of my countrymen. Finally I wandered off into Euclid Avenue to recover my peace of mind, only wondering whether Frenchmen in England are so heavenly minded under the infliction of innumerable Waterloo and Wellington squares, streets, places, and bridges, and if Russians feel as little the wrongs of Boulevards Sébastopol in Paris, and cannon plantations in every town in England. Now, Euclid Avenue is a street without parallel as far as I know. It is not quite a street, but it is not easy to draw a line between a street and an avenue. The American Euclid drew his line straight enough for more miles than I could go, and then he built on either side spruce, trim villas of very various architecture, shapes, and sizes, each in its plot of ground, with lawns, trees, and gardens, often open and unfenced to the roadway, which is lined with trees in a grand boulevard--a kind of Clapham or Balham frontage, with ideas taken from the Avenue de l'Impératrice, or the suburbs of Versailles--any way, the people who lived in these abodes were well lodged, and must have a fair share of the world's goods. They ought to be very good people, too. Wherever I looked there were church steeples pointing with their silent fingers to heaven. There are, I am told, nearly one hundred churches--to be guide-bookishly accurate, ninety-six--in Cleveland, and, as extremes touch, the Methodists and Presbyterians affect the Gothic style as well as the Episcopalians and Roman Catholics. On hearsay mainly, but in some measure on the evidence of eyesight, I aver that the city literally abounds in edifices of beauty devoted to the highest objects of education, science, learning, and charity. I felt, as I walked along the Avenue of Euclid, and beheld so many evidences of enterprise and prosperity, that (if I could do it in the dark) I ought to go and put a wreath at the foot of Commodore Perry's statue. What would it all have been, had the General in the red coat and the old Commodore on the other side had the best of it? Did any of the people in the nice houses think that an elderly gentleman who was dawdling under the shade of their beautiful trees was rather anxious that he should not be recognised as a compatriot of the degenerate descendants of their common ancestors who failed to prove that they were the better for not having been transplanted? I suppose not, but I was not in the least ashamed, somehow. I walked on mile after mile admiring the scene, and not the less interested in it because it so happened that I seemed to have hit off the witching hour of day when school-mistresses yawn and schools give up their young ladies to dinner, for I encountered processions of young ladies with books and bags, and nods and becks and wreathed smiles for their fellows, some of whom, mounted on their irresistible wheel skates, more terrible than Boadicea in her chariot, swept me off into the road as clean as the great Perry did the Britishers. If ever I see a large American box with "Miss S. Spriggs, Cleveland, Ohio," on it outside any hotel in the world, I shall stand on guard till I see the owner. "Sally! I say, Sally Spriggs! If I don't tell Mrs. Minerva I saw you blow a kiss at that ma-an" (I beg leave to say, alas! I was not the man) "I hope I shan't get my tea." The name was not Spriggs. But that is a detail. I only know that "Sally" was a charming person of some fifteen years of age, and that her vindictive friend, a year younger perhaps, was quite fascinating enough, should she ask grace of me, to induce me to spare Cleveland and all its oil-works if ever I lead a victorious army there to overthrow Perry and carry off those guns. Whatever its early or ultimate results may be, the United States system developes or creates an exquisite abandon and naturalness among the girls and women which they do not share with the men but in a matrimonial way, when they keep their full share all the same. Euclid Avenue must have an end, but I did not find it.

My mayor-ridden or driven friends, much pleased with what they had seen, had reached their hotel before I did, and were singing, metaphorically, their "_chanson de départ_" for Toledo. As I was busy packing, "Miss Keerin," the _châtelaine_ of the castle, or at least the chieftainess of the female helpdom, looked in upon me--a fine handsome young woman of a Hiberno-Celtic order of beauty, who told me she was Cleveland born, but that her father and mother were "Irish--poor people," driven into exile by the Saxons who came over with Hengist and Horsa. Miss Keerin belonged to the old faith, and there was a touch of Torquemada in the turn of her pretty mouth as she informed me "that she, and every maid in the house, was a good Roman Catholic." So I made my bow in spirit to Mr. MacClosky, the proprietor, and Miss Keerin, the mistress of the maids, for their devotion to the Church.

_May 20th._--There is one mystery which never can be revealed to me--I have no brains for it. In vain has it been explained to me by some of the clearest-headed men in the world; in vain have they in a kindly, compassionate way, with maps and time-tables, shown me why it was desirable, if not necessary or inevitable, that we should halt at Toledo on this blessed 20th of May and put up at Boody House! I admit it was in the programme. I have no objection to Toledo in the abstract, nor to Boody House in the concrete, but the value or nature of the reasons which dictated the Toledo turn-out must be beyond my ken for ever. I admit it is on the Maurice river, that it is a port for Erie navigation, that it "handles" grain largely, that thirty years ago the population was not 4000, and that to-day it is more than 50,000, that it is the converging point of thirteen railways, and that the Union depot is an immense, if not, in the words of the guide-book, "an imposing structure," but I am still as puzzled as I was when I entered the portals of Boody House why we ever "lay," as the soldiers say, in that place, considering the violent hurry we were in. One thing I can answer for--if there be a place more unlike another place than Toledo in Ohio is to Toledo in Spain, I have yet to travel for it, and I shall be obliged to any one to tell me where it is, and this I say after having seen the two Syracuses and the three Romes.

The preparations made in the various towns for the reception of the party conferred upon it something of an embarrassing character. But, as they were all in honour of the Duke, the humbler members of the party do not consider that they are involved in the ceremonies which await the train on arrival and departure, to signify the high sense that is entertained of the visit, and the desire upon the part of the principal inhabitants to do justice to it. It would be unjust to Toledo not to admit it has great attractions to any student of the American railway system, arising from the number of railways which start thence to most points of the compass. The reception committee, consisting of Mr. Bodmin, Mr. King, Mr. Williams, and Mr. Wells, aided by the Mayor, Mr. Romeis, appointed by the Produce Exchange, were in waiting on our arrival. Again dismay was carried into the hearts of the weaker vessels by hearing the word "Elevators"; but the gentlemen were kinder in their deeds than in their words, and only some of the particular points of interest in what is called the "middle ground" were displayed to those members of the party who did not make the best of their way to Boody House.

In the evening we went to the theatre, and were interested in a drama with the title of "One hundred Wives," which had nothing whatever to do with the play--a piece written for the purpose of bringing into contempt the practices of the Saints in Utah, full of local incidents and acted with very considerable spirit. The sentiment of the audience was shown most unmistakably in the vigorous and sustained applause which greeted any situation or sentiment in which the Mormon leaders and their teachings were held up to contempt and hatred, and the curtain came down, amidst loud cheering, on a fine situation, in which half-a-dozen soldiers, in the uniform of the United States infantry, appeared to execute justice and to establish the predominance of the United States Constitution in the land of the Saints.

There was some friction connected with the arrangements for our journey from Toledo to Detroit this morning. The general manager of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway was anxious that our train should run over his line instead of the Canada Southern, but Mr. Snow, passenger agent, who had come from Buffalo, applied to the customs authorities to pass the Fontaine engine across the border, in order to take the Duke over the other line. Our train consisted of what they call the combination baggage and smoking car, the Pullman hotel car Buckingham, a Pullman saloon belonging to the Pennsylvania Railway, and there was, moreover, the carriage of the general manager of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, the whole drawn by the Fontaine engine, which is a production of the mechanical genius and intelligence of a gentleman of that name in the Southern States. We were bound by schedule to go forty-five miles an hour, and Mr. Fontaine explained the mechanism and the advantages which he claimed for his engine to the party. The Duke got upon the engine with him and proceeded out of the station, with a confidence which it turned out was quite justified, although I admit some persons, not quite so experienced, were rather uneasy at the experiment. We should have gone to pieces in very good company, and there would not have been wanting representatives of the Press, of the Detroit and Toledo papers, to have shared or to have recorded the ruin. The Duke drove the engine to the great satisfaction of the engineer, Mr. Fontaine. Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt, informed of the proceedings, sent a telegram to know how the party were getting on just as we were leaving Toledo. At 2 o'clock we arrived safely in Detroit, where the mayor and several railway officials, Ex-senator Baldwin, Mr. Lord, and others were waiting to accompany the Duke and his friends in the "_Truant_" steam-yacht, belonging to Mr. Macmillan, in which we took a cruise upon the beautiful river that separates Canada from the United States.

There can be no comparison between the activity and commercial development of towns on the American and on the Canadian side of the great lakes, although Montreal prospers and Toronto has increased greatly in importance and in wealth, but still the credit and resources of the Dominion are more than respectable, and Canadian firms are extending their business in the United States very remarkably and rapidly. In the course of a charming excursion we had occasion to contrast the aspect of the American city with Canadian Windsor, just opposite; the towering elevators, lofty church steeples, smoking factory chimneys, crowded quays, piers, and stores, and the suburbs bright with gay villas, were in strong opposition to the air of rather amateur repose on the British side, which was only remarkable for an enormous whisky distillery vomiting masses of smoke into the sky. But on the American side we were somewhat comforted, whether our solace was derived from sound bases or not, by seeing that Canadian banks and insurance offices were installed in handsome well-appointed offices. Detroit proved a most agreeable surprise to us; there was a pleasant air about it, and an unassuming perkiness very agreeable.

It is the fashion to consider Canada as the Sleepy Hollow of the American continent; but if the giant Progress who is going to devour the East, and who is feeding it meanwhile to make it fat and plump, does not advance with leaps and bounds north of the St. Lawrence (as he does down south), his march is assured and his footsteps are on solid ground.

"Lands divided by a narrow strait abhor each other," sang Cowper. The St. Lawrence (Detroit River) is deep, full, and strong at the town--a very potent stream, but it is not quite broad enough. Windsor was a favourite retreat for Secesh enemies in the Civil War. Detroit is not quite innocent of Fenian enterprise. Windsor, too, makes bad but cheap whiskey--Detroit has a protective tariff, and so there is some little bickering and occasionally a threat of "eating up" the Canadians.

There are, perhaps, many more Englishmen prejudiced and unfair towards things and persons American than there are Americans perverse in their opinions regarding the Old World and their British ancestors, and the Americans are I think remarkable for their abstinence from allusions to the great Civil War in ordinary conversation, nor do they obtrude their party views generally on strangers. A pompous gentleman, a harmless little Dogberry enough, who held civic office at Detroit, considered it right to express some strong opinions about the Battle of Bull Run, at which he had not been. I have remarked that expressions of political feeling relative to the great conflict of 1861-5 were most forcible in the mouths of men who had not ventured their legs, heads, or bodies in the fray, and of such was our bourgeois Boanerges. He was desirous of astonishing the Duke by exhibiting "our society" and "our young ladies," of whom he talked as if they were his private property. Judging by what we saw, Detroit may be proud with reason and without the help of the Mayor, of both, but he probably did not mean what he said and meant to be patronising only. The gentlemen of Detroit were most courteous and agreeable, and full of the desire to please and to show their city, without missing one feature of it, but our programme did not permit us to dally on the way, and we had to continue our journey to Chicago in the afternoon, resign the pleasure of Russell House and reject the blandishments of our kindly conductors. Throughout the whole of our tour the only offensive remark concerning the only lady of our party appeared in a Detroit paper, and I am bound to say no one expressed greater disgust and indignation at the attack, which was after all only some coarse criticism on a travelling costume, than the American gentlemen who spoke of it. We dined at the Russell House and drove to the Michigan Central railroad station after midnight, having been ten hours in Detroit.

There had been lately a general revision of the programme, but, after all, Chicago was not so much out. The first idea was to arrive on the 20th: we actually arrived on the 21st, and that before 6 o'clock in the morning.

_May 21st._--The special train scrambled into the Chicago terminus, or depot (which has not yet done Phoenix from its ruination in the great fire) at some unpleasantly early hour this morning. (We have been subjected to three, if not four, distinct alterations in time-keeping as we travelled west. New York time rules up to the State borders; Columbia time regulates watches and clocks till Chicago is reached, and then westward the time changes again.)

The cars underwent the shocks that railway flesh is heir to at shunting time, till it was necessary to get up and go forth. Whilst the baggage was being taken out of the train, the Duke and I set out to find our way to the hotel. The ancient landmarks, however, such as I remembered them, had been ruthlessly swept away by the great fire; but it is not easy for a man to lose himself in an American city, where the streets are at right angles to each other, cutting the buildings into rectangular blocks. And so we wandered on through the crowds of early workmen and people going to their various places of business in straight lines, and saw street life in the morning--coffee-stands and shops in full play, crowds round the barbers' doors and saloons, and coloured men and women--a large element--shuffling to and fro along to the scene of their labours. Vast piles of masonry now tower above the broad thoroughfares, bearing the usual striking and disfiguring notices which the traders stick up to "differentiate" their establishments--very wonderful indeed when one reflected that they had all been raised on the area of the recent conflagration, one of the greatest the world has ever seen. Over a large proportion of the shops German names were inscribed; here and there over the cellars figured the styles and titles of Chinese washermen; and small establishments where groceries and drinks and the feebler kinds of commerce were carried on, displayed Hibernian patronymics.

Noble edifices, public and private, challenged admiration from time to time, especially the Post Office and Custom House; and as I read the inscription on the monument to "G. B. Armstrong, a native of Co. Antrim, Ireland, the founder of the Railway Mail Service," I could not but wonder what he could have founded had he remained at home.

Our walk through the streets to the Grand Pacific Hotel gave us the idea that the authorities did not turn much of their attention to sanitary measures.

There is reason to be proud of the activity and energy which came forth to reconstruct the city out of the ashes on grander lines than ever. But, oh! the filth of the streets! refuse in masses by the kerbstones, orange and apple peels, pea-nuts, oyster shells, feathers, paper, mud, dirt, on the flags. As such a state of things was felt to be a slur on the administration, it was explained to us that it was, to say the least, unusual, and it is only fair to say that it was accounted for in some measure by the exceedingly severe and protracted winter which filled the streets with snow, and only ended before our arrival. Five thousand men and more had been employed in clearing away the mess and slush; but they had not by any means done the work. The Mayor, Mr. Harrison, was, as we had occasion to perceive, a man of great energy, and he was grappling with the dirt and with official abuses in public administration and elsewhere very vigorously. If he comes out of the struggle with success and unbegrimed, Chicago and he may be proud of each other, and I heartily wish him a safe deliverance.

The Grand Pacific Hotel was involved in the common ruin ere it was completed; but it is now ready for any possible demand on its space and resources.

A little incident of the following morning afforded an illustration of the conditions under which the Venice of the West has grown up. Soon after breakfast Mr. Drake, the landlord, sent up word that General Jefferson Davis was below, and would be glad to pay his respects to the Duke of Sutherland, if his grace would receive him. He had only arrived that morning from New Orleans, which he had left on Monday evening. Nine hundred miles is a long way for an old man to travel at a stretch, but he did not complain of fatigue, and he was going on to Montreal, where he had business that night. The ex-President of the Confederate States--the man who was pronounced by Mr. Gladstone to have "made a nation"--was seated in the crowded hall smoking a cigar alongside of General Wright, who had fought against him on the Federal side, but who had not forgotten the old days when he and Jefferson Davis were cadets together. He is now grey, almost white-headed, wearing a closely-cut beard and moustaches, his features thinner and sharper than of yore, but his eye is as bright and as clear as ever. But it struck me that he had what is called "aged" very much within the last few years, and his step had lost a great deal of the springy lightness which distinguished his walk at the time of the Great War. He sat with the Duke of Sutherland for some time, talking of railway travelling and the improvements in it and other matters in the States; and mentioned with regret that he had been informed of a serious accident to Mr. Benjamin, of whom he spoke in high praise. "The last time I was in Chicago," he said, "I was in command of the post we had here, and the Indians disputed our right to cross the river. That was fifty years ago." How history makes itself in the Western World! This day they are going to place a memorial on the site of the block-house which then contained the little frontier garrison that Jeff Davis commanded, and whose control the red man refused to accept! When he went away every one of the party--and there were some among them who certainly had no sympathy with the lost cause he had championed so valiantly, and to which he still adheres with indomitable courage and affection--expressed the admiration which was inspired by his dignity and charming manner. _Diis placuit_, &c. A little later the Duke, Sir H. Green, Mr. Stephens, and Mr. Wright visited General Sheridan, and were presented to the members of the Head-Quarters Staff of the immense region over which his command is exercised, and amongst them General Forsyth, who had been in India at the time of the Prince of Wales's visit, and was known to the Duke of Sutherland. General Sheridan promised us every assistance we would require, and held out great temptations to the sporting weaknesses of the travellers could they but stay a little longer; nay, more, he sorely tried the domesticity of Sir H. Green by telling him of an expedition which is to come off on Indian territory never yet trodden by the white man's foot or seen by white man's eye; but a programme is a Procrustean bed which men make for themselves, and these joys had to be foregone like many another by reason of previous engagements. The Duke and most of the party were borne off to visit the slaughter and packing-houses, and so we missed the speeches and the parade which celebrated the erection of a memorial of Fort Dearborn, the frontier post, just fifty years ago, of the United States on Lake Michigan.

_Armor porcosque cano!_ Of the slaughter-yards and packing-houses of Messrs. Armour and Co., five miles from Chicago, I need not say much, for they have been described in every detail of killing, scalding, skinning, cutting, and preserving, by many visitors. The sight and the smell were too much for some of the weaker vessels, and they returned to the special train by which they had journeyed to the yards, whilst the others supped full of horrors and statistics. And how these statistics did rain upon us! Millions of pounds weight, millions of dollars, millions of cubic feet--figures in millions and tens of millions everywhere--everything the biggest, the tallest, the deepest, the broadest in the world. What human brain could bear the weight of that multiplication table gone mad? Fortunately it is all down in little books neatly tabulated. I confess the greatest wonder to me was not that so many living things should be slaughtered, and that so much food should be grown and garnered and carried, but that there were over the world so many millions of devouring creatures having stomachs for them all.

I have called Chicago the Venice of the American lakes, or something of the kind. In one respect indeed it excels the Queen of the Adriatic--the odours of the canal-like river to which it owes so much of its extraordinary prosperity. But these odours are to be deodorised some day, and the energies which have raised a city up twice in little more than a generation from ashes and muddy waters, will no doubt accomplish greater works than that.

The mayor (twice elected to that high office), Mr. Harrison, took the Duke out to see the "Crib," as it is termed, whence the waters of the lake are conducted by two iron tunnels, two miles long, to supply the city. On our way he stopped his carriage in an obscure and ill-looking quarter to show us the working of the ingenious system by which 400 police are supposed to be enabled to do the work usually allotted to 1000 men in other cities. Against a dead wall there was affixed a wooden box about 3 ft. square. The mayor took a key out of his pocket and opened it. The key was at once fixed in the lock and could not be removed till the patrol came from the station. This station was a mile and a quarter away. Then the mayor pulled down a small lever inside the box and gave the signal for the patrol to come up at once. Whilst we were waiting he showed us the telephone apparatus by which detailed information can be given to the police of what is required in cases of burglary, assault, fire, &c., and explained that keys similar to those he used are given to trustworthy householders who desire them, so that in case of need they can summon the police at once, and as these keys are numbered and cannot be withdrawn from the lock there is no risk of practical joking, and offenders are heavily fined. In 2½ minutes there came tearing along the street at full speed, driven by a policeman, a light cart with two horses, with two of the force in the vehicle. Inside were stretchers and appliances for removing prisoners, and, that the alarm might not be fruitless, the mayor directed the police to pick up a "drunky" whom we had passed on the way, amusing a group of children by his innocent but ill-regulated gambols. A little crowd assembled round the mayor and the strangers as he explained the devices by which the authorities battled with the crime and excesses of the hybrid population of the city, and I was amused by the expression of disgust on the faces of some of them at the laudations his honour bestowed on the ingenuity and effectiveness of the means he was developing to restrain the lawless desire of gain or the love of a free fight which distinguish some of the citizens.

The proprietor of the grand hotel in which we lodged displayed an amount of energy in directing our movements, for which we were scarcely prepared. He was evidently master in his own house, and in America a man who can keep an hotel is able to do anything, and is certainly a peer of any duke in the world. After dinner, wishing to go to a theatre, a request was made at the bar to procure places. And as we humbly walked off to the place of entertainment, the hotel proprietor accompanied us, and we were joined on our way by an agreeable young gentleman who had introduced himself to us in the early part of the day as Chairman of the Committee of Reception of the Press. I had certain uneasy suspicions that there was going to be some kind of show made of the unostentatious, quiet gentleman who was sauntering along, smoking his cigar, side by side with the spirited hotel-keeper. These were not appeased when, on entering the theatre, I perceived unmistakable officials, managers, box-keepers, and the like, drawn up in the manner of a deputation. It was half an hour behind time, but the play had not yet commenced--they were waiting for the Duke. As he passed along by the pit tier to the stage-box reserved for his use, every eye was directed upon him; and when he entered--awful moment--the orchestra struck up, amidst applause from the gallery and thumping of umbrellas and sticks, and clapping of hands, "God Save the Queen." What it was expected his Grace should do I know not. It was exceedingly embarrassing, and all we could do was to sit tight and take no notice. No doubt it was intended as a compliment, and very kindly meant, but it was most trying, and only the hotel proprietor and the Chairman of the Reception Committee of the Press were at all at their ease at that moment. The play proved an exceedingly interesting national piece; not very probable in all the incidents, but still giving a very fair idea of the general attitude of the American mind in its relation to Mormonism, and tending to bring into deserved contempt the disciples and practices of that most outrageous creed.

_May 22nd._--The 'Chicago Times' of Saturday contained the greater part of the revised New Testament, telegraphed from New York. The 'Chicago Tribune' of Sunday (to-day) presents its readers with the whole of the Revised Testament, complete from beginning to end.

We had a very pleasant dinner, at which General Sheridan, General M'Dowell, and General Forsyth assisted. It was a relief to get away for a little from grain averages and railway statistics, but these are rare escapades from the study of material interests. The subsidence of the mass of combatants which the Civil War summoned to the field north and south from civil life into the ordinary pursuits of citizens was one of the most wonderful phenomena of the contest. I find my old friends have beaten their swords into all kinds of peaceful implements. One day General McClellan writes to me from a railway office in New Jersey to say he is on the eve of a voyage to Europe. Now I get a letter from "Bangs and Kirkland, attorneys-at-law, 142, La Salle St., Chicago," dated May 9th, which puzzled me a little till I read the text and the well-known signature of "Joseph Kirkland," recalling the old days of the army and head-quarters of the Potomac in 1861, and remembered the martial major who was my frequent companion in excursions about the camps around Washington.

_May 23rd._--The Duke and most of the party started at 8.30 to inspect the Pullman car factory. The town is called Hyde Park, South Chicago, Calumet, Grand Crossing, and Kensington--and lies upon the outside of the great city, nine miles distant. Nine months ago, according to a Chicago paper, there was not a single trace of an industrial habitation upon the spot, and for five months of the subsequent time there was one of the most severe winters on record; but in April the largest engine in the world, as we were told, was started as the central motive power of one of the most extensive manufacturing schemes of the world. The Corliss Centennial Exhibition engine, which was built at a cost of 25,000_l._, was set to work with its 24,000 horse-power, to give life to the machinery which had been erected by the enterprise of Colonel Pullman; and since that time a city of freight shops, hammer shops, equipment buildings, lumber store-houses, foundries, brickworks, with railway tracks to connect them, gas-houses, artesian wells, and wide and long ranges of streets round the central depôt, have sprung up in Pullman; and locomotive works are also busy in connection with the rolling-mills and iron-dale mills which are connected with the town of Pullman by water, rail, and waggon roads. The sentiment of wonder is taxed when one visits this great American enterprise. It is said that before the year is over ten thousand people will be comfortably housed and living in this city, the work of a few weeks. No wonder that the Chicago people are enthusiastic about their city, though they are apt to be somewhat tiresome in the details which they give of its greatness. "I have sometimes tried," said one of them, "when I was travelling about, to invent some fabulous story to relate about Chicago; but when I woke up in the morning I always found that the progress made had exceeded the wildest fabrication I could think of." Twenty-five cars a day will be turned out when the works are in full swing. The most interesting operation, perhaps, was the manufacture of the paper wheels intended to take the place of iron in all railway, and which are already used by the Pullman cars. The paper is made of wood, which is cut on the shores of Lake Michigan, is brought to the works, reduced to pulp, and under hydraulic pressure is made as hard as granite, and perfectly impenetrable by air or water. It is sheathed with a steel band, which holds it like a vice, and it is cheaper and more lasting than iron.

The thermometer at 88 degrees in the shade, and the temperometer higher still. For there are thorns in the flesh, and trials, small though they be, to vex the spirit. Some there are who can endure interviewing without wincing, others who laugh at evil or good reports; but there are people who fret and fume at obstinate inquisition, and who are indignant at misrepresentation. These latter should stay at home. If one of these writes a letter marked "private" to the editor of a newspaper, he may be vexed if he sees it in print, with the word "private" omitted. It must be admitted that the peculiarities which invited comment in times past have nearly disappeared--I mean manners and customs connected with tobacco and its uses. Not only that--the burning curiosity which proved so troublesome to thin-skinned strangers appears to have been slaked by copious indulgence. Americans no longer care to know, or at least, disdain to ask, "Well, sir; and what do you think of our country?" They feel that they have a country which travellers must recognise as one of the first in the world. However, I think an American is not always pleased when an Englishman, tired out, perhaps, by the strain which a continual demand upon his power of expressing surprise involves, meekly intimates that there is something of the same sort to be seen in the Old Country. The other day, when we were taken out on the lake at Chicago, and asked to admire the water, which was not particularly clear, I remarked that the water supply of London, with its three millions and a half of people, and no lake at all, was rather creditable. The worthy Mayor was at once antagonistic. "Where do you get your water?" "From the various water companies--the New River, the Chelsea," &c. The Mayor next day, at a public meeting, congratulated the people of Chicago that they were not supplied with such water as London had to put up with, "where," he said, "I am told it comes from Chelsea, which is one of the filthiest places in the world."

By this time the whole party has got into working order; Lady Green, as a soldier's wife, sets an excellent example of punctuality and ready-packed-up-edness, no matter how early the start may be. It is a large party, but, by reason of its discipline, very easy to move. And so, notwithstanding the work in the early morning nine miles away, we were all ready at the terminus of the Shore Line by noon to strike out for the West by the rail which runs by Lake Michigan, halting first at Milwaukee, eighty miles away.

The Americans have many things to be grateful for on the vast continent of which they own so goodly a share, especially the natural facilities which they possess for turning the development of their energies to account; and among these, next, perhaps, to the navigable rivers opening up the length and breadth of the States to the sea, is the series of lakes stretching from the Atlantic to the central mountain ridges, affording the most admirable intercommunication between the great cities which are growing up on their shores and the corn-growing and stock-producing regions which extend far away on either side of them.

Perchance farther out from the shore, under the influence of a brighter sky, they may be blue, but certainly the waves that broke on the beach were muddy and the river flowing into the lake at Milwaukee, which is visible from the train, is exceedingly filthy. Only comparisons are odious, I would say that it looked as vile as that at Chicago. It needs a strong sense of the picturesque and beautiful to tolerate the waters of the Venetian canals in summer time, but here, without any compensation, there are the odours and the nastiness which one would more willingly encounter in paying homage to the Queen of the Adriatic in July or August.

On the lake were many sailing vessels with snowy cotton canvas, the intermediate belt of land being thickly populated, rich, well cultivated, and prettily wooded. Now and then a huge steamer came in view, vomiting masses of smoke, too common a disfigurement of these pure skies, for neither on shore nor on the river do they burn it. Chicago is almost as black and smoky as Birmingham. Racine seemed to have its full share of prosperity and manufacturing industry, but Milwaukee, which we reached at 2.20 P.M., added one to the many surprises which our party encountered in the United States. Mr. W. Mitchell, who came from Aberdeen some forty odd years ago, one of the chief men of the place, in company with other gentlemen, met the Duke of Sutherland, and drove us through the city. It contrasted very favourably in the cleanliness of the streets and the general appearance of unadulterated well-doing of the population with Chicago--a crowning glory to Mr. Mitchell, and those like him who remember the town as a toddling, wee hamlet, and see it now flourishing and opulent, with its 50,000 inhabitants.

Like many other places in this vast region, the site of Milwaukee owes its discovery to one of the band of French missionaries, who, with devotion and courage never surpassed even by the chivalrous explorers who cast such a glory over the flag of France for nearly two centuries, made their way amongst hostile Indians, carrying the Cross in their hands, through forest, prairie, and mountain, descended rivers and navigated lakes, in the futile attempt to civilise and Christianise the Red Man. The Indians used the indent in the shore where Milwaukee stands as the centre of their permanent settlements. They were established there when the first traders came, and La Framboise, who left some record of his adventures amongst them, began his intercourse in the way which has signalised the early relations of the white to the red man but too often. Nevertheless, the whites and Indians got on exceedingly well for many years. The former were French, or French half-breeds. The French generally agree better with the natives than the British and British-Americans. In 1820, however, a man named Juneau was the only white settler, and it was not till 1831 that he obtained a grant from the Indians of the whole of the ground on which Milwaukee now stands. Two gentlemen named Kilbourn and Walker (names perpetuated in the city) settled and established commercial relations with the people and traders of the outlying regions. As an American writer says,--"The town, which has sprung up like Jonah's gourd, grew up partly on a sand-hill and partly in a mud-hole, one being cut down to fill the other up, because men found they could accumulate wealth there." Chicago, down south, had started in formidable competition, but Milwaukee was not to be beaten. It built its quays and store-houses, and projects its piers and jetties, harbour of refuge and docks. You look round and find it hard to believe that not half a century ago the site of this city was described as "an utter wilderness, a howling, untutored, worthless stretch of forest and prairie." Elevators tower aloft; the marsh has been drained, and is now a maze of canals and slips. The buildings in the city are in strong contrast, in the air of propriety and exquisite cleanliness, to the river on which it is built. This appears much due to the material--a light-coloured brick--largely used in the houses. There is a coquetry in the local architecture. The genius of the American architect in woodwork is varied. It deals in pinnacles, gables, verandahs, porticoes, eaves, and quaintly coloured fronts; and where the proprietor has not indulged in brick or stone, he has availed himself of paint, generally blue or slate colour, to decorate the exterior. The number of detached residences, standing in their own grounds amidst garden-plots and plantations, suggests wealth and comfort. The trees of the forest have been spared, and if the axe has been applied it has been wielded with judgment.

Milwaukee is famous for its beer. More than half a million barrels were made and sold the year before last, and still the trade is growing. There appear to be Germans enough to have stomach for it all in the city and the district round about. A Teutonic soil with a top dressing of Scotch may be said to constitute the stratum of the organic formation of the people of Milwaukee.

After a visit to the Soldiers' Home, an asylum for veterans of the militia and volunteers of Ohio and neighbouring States--a very interesting establishment two miles from the city--and a look at Mr. Mitchell's well-ordered, luxurious residence on the outskirts, Panklinton House received us, and at 10 p.m. we continued our course westwards towards St. Paul, travelling all night, and sleeping most comfortably in the Pullman car.