AT CHICAGO.
I had hardly crossed the Indiana State line when the tire on the
rear wheel broke in two pieces and came off. Luckily, I was not far
from Richmond where a wheelman gave me a second-hand eighteen inch
tire, which he cut down to fit the sixteen inch wheel, and by wiring
it on occasionally I reached Chicago with no further trouble on my
part from the wheel. Just before reaching Indianapolis, however, the
machine was the cause of a broken buggy wheel. I had just dismounted
to avoid a drove of cattle, when a horse, coming towards me, suddenly
decided to go the other way. I stood still in my tracks but that made
no difference, the horse cramped the buggy so short that the front
wheel went to pieces, and had not the men jumped out and grabbed
the horse by the bit, just as they did, there would have been more
trouble. As it was, they left the buggy by the roadside and walked
a short distance to their destination, without expressing an opinion
that I was in any way to blame for the accident.
The State capitol at Indianapolis is a building of the Grecian style
of architecture, 300 feet wide, 500 feet long, and three stories
high. It has been seven years in building and two years more will
be required to complete it, but the stones have become so stained
and dingy from the smoke that smuts everything out of doors in all
these Western cities that the structure from the outside already
looks like an old building. Several of those in authority about the
building were very anxious to have me know that the dirty appearance
of the outside would all disappear when the building was completed,
but no amount of scrubbing will make it clean until the use of soft
coal is done away with. The smoke from that coal discolors everything,
and the finest stone buildings are bereft of much of the beauty from
this cause. The Palmer House, a stone building here in Chicago, for
instance, was painted white less than two years ago to get rid of
the smutty appearance that it had acquired, but even now it looks as
dirty and dingy as though it had never been painted. Scrub and paint
all they may there is not a building in all the West, I believe, that
looks as clean and white on the outside as our own State capitol on
Bushnell Park. But to return to the capitol at Indianapolis. Black
and dirty as it will always look on the outside, on the inside it is
to be almost entirely pure white, giving it, in comparison with the
capitol at Albany and our own, a much cheaper look. But it is superior
to either of those other buildings in one respect and that is, as
far as I could see, there has been no settling or chipping. One of
the finest corridors in the Albany capitol is so sadly marred in
appearance by the settling of the foundation that the breaks and
cracks in the panels on the side are noticeable to every one. But
the dome to the Indiana capitol, which is to be 300 feet high, is
not yet finished, and the proof of the stability of building has
thus hardly been furnished. A very interesting part of my two hours'
clambering over the building and about the works was the sawing and
planing of the stones used in the construction. The stone mouldings
and cornices and all the straight work on the whole building is done
by machinery just as the wood used in the construction of a wooden
building is prepared in advance. The carving was the only work done
by hand in preparing the stones for the masons to place in position.
The county court house at Indianapolis is typical of one very
noticeable phase of the Western desire for display. It is a fine
substantial building no doubt, but inside it is one conglomeration
of different kinds of marble; panels, walls, balustrades, everything
inside almost is marble; all the kinds and colors that are in existence
are represented here, and many kinds are to be found nowhere else in
the world but here: all these are mixed up in the most gaudy manner
possible. But look a little closer and there is not a bit of marble
there, it is all paint, imitation. And where the paint is wearing off
the fraud is badly exposed, giving the whole building the appearance
of a decided sham. Another instance of this desire for display that
is not shown by counterfeiting at least, is seen in the elegant
barber's shop at the Palmer House. Set into the tiling on the floor
are nearly four hundred silver dollars that add nothing at all to
the beauty of the floor. But many of the buildings that have been
erected here in Chicago within the last three or four years are very
substantial and whatever there is about them is real and not flashy
in appearance. Clustering around the Board of Trade Building, which
probably is the finest building of the kind outside of New York,
are many handsome structures occupying a quarter of a square, that
go up into the sky ten, twelve, and thirteen stories high.
I have spoken of the hogs and pigs that are seen all along the roadside
through Ohio and Indiana. The numerous sheep that are feeding along
the highways show some sense by simply turning to one side to let
me pass, and often bleating after me as I leave them behind as if
they were sorry to have me go; but the pigs will start up and run
along ahead, scaring all the others with their short, quick grunts,
until a drove of a dozen or fifteen are bobbing along and running
into each other in their foolish attempt to get out of the way. Then
they will all suddenly stop, stand perfectly still, and let me pass
without flinching. If Eastern people who have a prejudice against
Western pork could see what the hogs are fed upon they would have
good reason to change their opinions. The hogs eat a great deal of
grass and are not confined to any muddy, filthy pen as they are in
the East, but roam around the woods and fields as do the cows and
sheep. In the fall corn on the ear is thrown out into the lots to them,
and I can't see how pork could be fatted in any cleaner way.
While the hog is being discussed I must tell what I saw of the
manner of his death at the Union Stock Yards just outside of the city
limits. Prominent among the many buildings at the yards that cover
365 acres is an office of the Illinois Humane Society, which gives
a visitor the impression that he will see nothing but kind treatment
and humane ways of killing the beef and hogs, and as far as the cattle
are concerned there is nothing objectionable about the process, for
a bullet in the brain renders them insensible at the outset. But the
hogs--well, this is what I saw. A dozen or more at a time are driven
into a pen in one of those immense packing houses. A man slips a chain
quickly around one of their hind legs and they are jerked up into the
air by machinery, so that their heads are about four or five feet from
the floor. They are suspended on little pulleys which roll them along
into another pen where a man cuts their throats. This man was standing
in clotted blood ankle deep, and the squealing, kicking row of hogs
threw blood all over him, which he frequently washed off at a barrel
of water near. A hog was jerked up about every ten seconds, and there
would be six or eight at a time hanging with their throats cut. Before
they had time to die or grow very weak from the loss of blood they were
dropped on to an inclined board, and from there they slipped off into
the scalding tub. Sometimes two or three would collect on this board
and then they would all slide off into the hot water together. Very
few of them were dead when they went in, and they would go plunging
and struggling around in there, throwing the water in every direction,
till gradually becoming weaker they would lie still, a dozen of them,
in the long narrow tub at a time, and be turned over and over by men
with poles very much as cooks turn nut-cakes over with a fork in the
hot fat. Why such haste should be used in getting them into the hot
water I cannot see, and I understand the Humane Society have tried
unsuccessfully to stop such inhuman work, but this is the sight I came
unawares upon, a spectacle that I have not enlarged upon or exaggerated
in the least. The hogs were simply drowned in hot water. The rest of
the work I rather enjoyed. The scalded hogs were taken out and placed
upon a revolving wheel, covered with scrapers, which took all the hair
off excepting around the head and legs. This wheel was wide enough to
hold three hogs at a time, and they were turned over several times in
order to scrape all sides of them. Then men finished up the scraping
with knives, the heads were taken off with two or three strokes of
the knife, and from the time the hog was first seized by the leg till
he was cut up two or three men were at work on him all the time,
one set of men passing him along to the next, each doing certain
parts of the work. Thus 2,500 hogs a day are put to death by this
one set of men, and there was machinery in this same packing house
for two other sets of man, so that seven or eight thousand hogs are
scalded to death, scalded from the inside as well as from the outside,
every day. This packing house is in full operation, and this is only
one of many such houses in the stock-yards. I remember now there was
an invitation prominent over the door of the Humane Society to make
"complaints at this office," and every time I think of the horrible
work being perpetrated so near by, I wonder of what earthly good is
such a society. I only regret that I did not complain at the time,
useless as it would undoubtedly have been, but then I did not realize
what an awful sight I had seen. The enormity of the cruelty has grown
on me since. But let me change the subject. A bowl of bread and milk
in the middle of the day is to be had, almost for the asking, and it
not only serves to quench thirst, but what strength it gives is sooner
felt than if the food was of a more solid nature. One day I asked an
old lady for a bowl of bread and milk, and she brought me the milk in
a bowl with two huge slices of bread thrust down into the milk whole,
and then she handed me a two-tined fork to eat it with. Often when I
am caught out between places at night and have to ask accommodations
at farm-houses, I can usually get taken in by saying "a bowl of bread
and milk will do for supper."
One night, soon after the machine had been put into the front
parlor,--the farmers always think the best room in the house none
too good for that "silver" horse, as some of them term it--and
the knapsack had been laid away in the corner, the husband came in
from the barn with two pails of milk, followed by his little boy,
who was just old enough to walk if no threshold or hole in the rag
carpet interfered with his progress. The milk was placed in the
buttery on the floor, and the little youngster of course had to see
that it was done all right. Then the farmer came out and everything
was quiet for a minute, when suddenly there was a splash. As it
so often happens to such toddling young ones, the little fellow's
toes suddenly flew up from some unaccountable reason, and he sat
down into one of those foaming pails of milk. He never said a word,
but sat there perfectly still until his mother, happening to go into
the buttery, saw the floor covered with milk, and she jerked him out
of that pail as one would pull a close-fitting cork out of a bottle,
and with very much the same kind of a sound. When supper was ready,
in reply to her question, I said I preferred "cold morning's milk to
the warm or warmed over night's milk."
About forty miles above Indianapolis, in a sparsely settled district,
I passed a small church filled to overflowing with people, and a
little further on I met a funeral procession. It had been raining
during the morning, but among the fifty or more teams that formed
the procession, there was but one top carriage, two buggies, and the
rest were all heavy team-wagons. In these farm wagons with boards
for seats, were whole families that had come a dozen miles, probably,
to attend the funeral. From this it seems that buggies and business
wagons are luxuries that the average Western farmer does not yet feel
able to afford.
At Lafayette, I called at the home of Mr. Frank A. Lewis, to inquire as
to the condition of the roads farther on, and his mother kindly asked
me in to supper. Before that was finished, Frank returned with several
wheelmen, among them Mr. Wal. Wolever, a young photographer. Here the
pikes or gravel roads which made the riding excellent so far came to
an end, and there was nothing before me for 120 miles to Chicago but
black clay roads. It had rained heavily for three successive nights,
and after riding over 1,300 miles to reach a city that is not 1,000
miles by direct routes from Hartford, I may, perhaps, be forgiven for
wishing to avoid three hard days' work, without any practical return
for it in knowledge or experience by taking the train to Chicago. After
reaching that city, and being kindly received by friends and old
schoolmates, it was with a strong feeling of thankfulness for my own
safety, that I read the accounts of the terrible cyclones and floods
that had passed through sections of Ohio and Indiana, carrying away
bridges that I had so lately ridden over in safety, and perhaps killing
men and women from whom I had so recently received kind treatment.
The system of beautiful parks that environ Chicago, and the boulevards
that connect them are the pride of the city, and the citizens have
good reason for being so proud of them. Only a few years ago the
whole country around about the city was a low level wet prairie,
but now there are six as beautiful parks as are to be found in almost
any city in the country; parks filled with lakes, cascades, brooks,
hills, groves, grottoes, wild animals and tame ones, and everything
almost that is to be found in places where nature furnishes things
to order. In Lincoln Park, for instance, is a mound of earth, a
hill I suppose they call it, that is probably the highest point of
land for many miles near the city, but this, like everything else
in these parks, is artificial. All through Ohio and Indiana there is
much land that has not yet been cleared, and these clumps and strips
of timber give a variety to the country that would otherwise have
been very monotonous to me, riding for hours and hours as I did over
nearly level roads. These woods have little if any underbrush, and the
grass through them is kept closely cropped by cows, sheep, and hogs,
so that these two States are filled with hundreds of beautiful groves
that invite a lazy wheelman to stop and stay awhile in the cool shade.
One day, wishing to get rid of the several days' growth of bristling
beard on my face, I took out my shaving apparatus, hooked the leather
strap to the brake handle, honed the razor, found an old can, brought
some water from a brook near by, pinned the pocket mirror on a tree,
and got as clean a shave as I ever had, washing my face with one
corner of a handkerchief, and drying it with the other end.
But the open level prairie that surrounds Chicago on all sides must
have a sort of depressing influence on the thoughts and ideas of those
who are born and brought up without the variety of brooks, hills,
mountains, and ocean. The first question usually asked me by farmers,
who probably have never traveled far from their prairie homes, is:
"How far do you live from the salt water?" and when I tell them the
distance, which until this trip always seemed to me considerable,
but which to them, with their distances and so many things on such
an immense scale, seems trifling, they act as if a sniff of the salt
sea air from a distance of forty or fifty miles would be a blessing
that they could hardly hope for. And yet Lake Michigan, to me, would
seem a very good substitute for the ocean in everything but the
taste of the water. Two of these parks are washed by the waters of
this lake, and so badly washed too that the shore at Jackson Park is
rip-rapped for nearly a mile, making a beautiful white-stone beach. The
boulevards are laid out on as grand a scale and with as little regard
to expense as are the parks. The grand boulevard is Commonwealth
avenue in Boston over again, only it is twice as long, with a very
broad avenue in the center and a street of good width on each side,
one for equestrians and the other for wheelmen, I should judge,
for it is very smooth. Ten rows of beautiful elms stretch away in a
straight line for two miles, the larger ones having rows of smaller
ones on each side. Drexel boulevard has two broad avenues, lined with
trees on the outside, and the center filled with lovely flower-beds,
for over a mile in length. Other boulevards laid out on a similar
plan but not in so finished a condition, connect the different parks,
making a continuous drive of nearly forty miles, all as smooth as the
most fastidious wheelman could desire. Then there are the lake drives,
Dearborn and Michigan avenues, and many other streets too numerous
and common to mention, common nowhere but in Chicago though. Chicago
wheelmen know so little about coasting, that it seemed quite a novelty
to them to see an Eastern boy ride with his legs over the handles,
and when I coasted down into one of the tunnels that run under the
Chicago River, and disappeared in the darkness, their eyes stuck out
with wonder. It was a novelty to me, too, for the dripping water gave
me quite a shower bath before I came out on the other side.
Distance traveled on the wheel, 1,420 miles.