_Oct., Nov., and Dec., '79_.--The points of St. Louis are its position,
its absolute wealth, (the long accumulations of time and trade, solid
riches, probably a higher average thereof than any city,) the unrivall'd
amplitude of its well-laid-out environage of broad plateaus, for
future expansion--and the great State of which it is the head. It fuses
northern and southern qualities, perhaps native and foreign ones, to
perfection, rendezvous the whole stretch of the Mississippi and Missouri
rivers, and its American electricity goes well with its German phlegm.
Fourth, Fifth and Third streets are store-streets, showy, modern,
metropolitan, with hurrying crowds, vehicles, horse-cars, hubbub, plenty
of people, rich goods, plate-glass windows, iron fronts often five or
six stories high. You can purchase anything in St. Louis (in most of the
big western cities for the matter of that) just as readily and cheaply
as in the Atlantic marts. Often in going about the town you see
reminders of old, even decay'd civilization. The water of the west, in
some places, is not good, but they make it up here by plenty of very
fair wine, and inexhaustible quantities of the best beer in the world.
There are immense establishments for slaughtering beef and pork--and I
saw flocks of sheep, 5000 in a flock. (In Kansas City I had visited a
packing establishment that kills and packs an average of 2500 hogs a
day the whole year round, for export. Another in Atchison, Kansas, same
extent; others nearly equal elsewhere. And just as big ones here.)