are so many, strike them down and plant ruin in their places, and where you see the flat roofs of the ten-story buildings below, do likewise with them -and then, look down at the street at the bottom and make all flat and level with that, with heaps of debris here and cracking walls there, and smoking ruins everywhere to vary the monotony. Do this, and then realize, if you can, the horror that swept over Chicago, the holocaust through which your city

flagration that ever swept over a civilized world.

HISTORY OF THE FIRE.

The signal for the great conflagration, we find, was given on a Saturday night at about ten o'clock, October 7, 1871. This was the announcement of the first fire, which burned for four hours and consumed four blocks. This blaze of itself was enough to draw out the entire population of Chicago, and fill all with fear and anxiety. It originated

TWENTY ACRES OF BUILDINGS IN WEST DIVISION IN RUINS. LUMBER, WOOD AND COAL YARDS, PLANING MILLS, STORES AND DWELLINGS BURNED.

THE ADAMS STREET VIADUCT DESTROYED-NARROW ESCAPE OF THE BRIDGE. THOUSANDS OF CITIZENS WITNESS THE GRAND BUT AW

FUL ILLUMINATION. THE LOSS SUPPOSED TO BE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF $1,000,000.

SCENES, INCIDENTALS AND ACCIDENTS OCCASIONED BY THE FIRE.

THE SOUNDING OF THE FIRE ALARM

From Box No. 248, at about 11 o'clock last night, was the solemn prelude to one of the most disastrous and imposing conflagrations which has ever visited a city which has already enrolled in her annals numbers of such visitations, many of them so terrible that they can serve as eras in her history. For days past alarm has followed alarm but the comparatively trifling losses have familiarized us to the pealing of the Court House bell and we had forgotten that the absence of rain for three weeks had left everything in so dry and inflammable a condition that a spark might start a fire which would sweep from end to end of the city." **

The

This

On Sunday, October 8, the people of Chicago read their newspapers with their accounts of the fire, and, later, visited the ruins. On Sunday night, as they were about going to bed, they were aroused by another alarm. Court House bell rang again. time the signal came from further down the city, further south, but still in the west division, and from a point just about the same degree west as the origin of the fire on Saturday night. A stable was burning in the neighborhood of Jefferson and Dekoven streets. Dekoven street is eight blocks south of Van Buren, and Jefferson and Van Buren were the western and southern boundaries of the first fire. The alarm came in at II o'clock. At 12 o'clock it was still coming in. At two in the morning it was coming in yet, and ringing out in a steady peal of the fretful Court House bell. The city began to be alive. People came hurrying from all directions, and were hastening to the fire. But they did not need to. This was the one case in history where the mountain came to Mahomet. This fire they were running to was the one that later came to them, that came to them so swiftly, indeed, that in a few hours they were running from it—yes, running in fearful speed and frenzy-for this was the fire that burned Chicago.

EXTENT OF DESTRUCTION.

course,

The newspaper reports, of taken so quickly and fretfully off the hot scene, were in many respects but inaccurate and altogether incomplete accounts of the fire. It remained for time and weeks of investigation to show the real extent of the destruction. From a number of reports compiled after all the details had been learned, I find the following cause of and territory of the fire: Beginning in the stable at Jefferson and Dekoven streets, the flames advanced north along Jefferson to Van Buren street, east on Van Buren to Canal; then north on Canal to Adams; also east on Dekoven to Clinton; north

on Clinton to Taylor, east on Taylor, across the river to Sherman, north on Sherman to Harrison; east on Harrison to Wabash avenue; north on Wabash avenue to Congress street, and then east to the lake. This describes its southern boundaries, and the western boundaries in the southern portion of the west division. The distance between Jefferson street and the lake is about a mile. At Adams street the fire crossed the river, coming east, leaving the western division, and after that kept east of the south branch of the river entirely, making that its western border, and then, crossing the main channel which runs east and west, kept east and along the border of the north branch until it reached Division, where it left the river and pursued its way almost directly north to Fullerton avenue, which, as far as I can find, was its real northern limit. On the east it followed the lake straight along until it reached Wisconsin street, then the lower boundary of Lincoln Park, passing near the two cemeteries, then along the lake between North avenue and the Park. At Wisconsin street the fire left the lake, turning west to Clark and proceeding north on Clark to Fullerton, where it met the western boundary, at a point exactly three miles north of the Court House. These are the boundaries of the fire that the maps of it show, and almost everything comprised within these lines was burned.

The following account from the Chicago Inter-Ocean of Oct. 8th, 1872, cites the details of the destruction accurately:

The total area burned over was 2,124 acres or about three and one-third square miles, the total length of streets stripped of houses about seventy miles, the total number of buildings destroyed 17,450, or thirty per cent. of the whole number com. prised within the city limits. Of the 14,000 houses of the North Division not 600 were standing on Tuesday morning, thirty hours after the conflagration commenced. Monday night found 100,000 people homeless who had been well housed the day

before; and the most of the 100,000 were destitute of ail means of living; hundreds of men who had counted their wealth by tens of thousands being then unable to raise money enough to procure cart. age for the few worldly effects which they had snatched from the flames.

The aggregate loss by this great disaster was about $192,000,000, exclusive of salvage. This included however only the actual property destroyed and did not take into account what could not, of course, be accurately estimated; the loss of business occasioned by the interruption of the Fall trade, the destruction of all stocks of goods, the temporary shock to credit, and the privation as to quarters for storing and selling to which all business was subjected The protraction of business and the disorganization of society was for a brief time complete; and nothing perhaps contributed to this more than the lack of a natural rallying place for the authorities of the city, political or commercial. The day succeeding the fire was a very blank one, even with those citizens who found themselves with a roof- Inter Ocean, October 8, 1872.

What Chicago has done since that affliction I will only ask you to look at the illustrations accompanying, and then to judge for yourselves. If the view along Randolph street, which you see, does not inform you, or that up State, or those of Dearborn and La Salle, or that general view of the northeast corner of the business district, then it would be unnecessary for the types to try. The chronicler would only like to state that if you yourself happen not to be well enough travelled to realize it, as you are looking at these views you are beholding the reflection of the most impressive prospect in the civilized world. You have never seen the duplicate and it is safe to say you never will. The central business district of Chicago today has its counterpart nowhere on earth.

When Chicago was burned she contained about 350,000 people. The fire reduced this number to 300,000. Today the census reports 1,800,000 souls, and the city authorities present to the world a map of a city thirty miles long by twelve miles wide. And in this article you have been told that this is only the twenty-fifth anniversary of her new

birth.

H

E had desk and table room in the offices of a real estate company on one of the down-town streets. The rent was so small that he could pay it with sufficient promptness and regularity, ingratiating with the collector who called monthly. No one had heard of any of his plans being accepted, nor could any one point to a building that had grown from the original efforts of his pen, compass and candle-stick. And yet he managed to pay his rent, his board bill, and to dress uncommonly well. The true source of his income had long been a mystery to the men about town, the men who knew him best. It is true he made great numbers of drawings, devising whole cities in four, five, six-yes, even tenstory buildings. These cities were erected on the corner of his table; they formed quite a respectable pile of paper.

No one had come to him and said: "This plan suits me; wrap it up and send it to my office. I guess we'll build from it." No; he did not sell his plans. He was always underbid or too late.

He simply made buildings on paper and their only growth was in the castles of air that arose just outside his window sash, the only builders being the thoughts which formed themselves in the smoke of the cigar he held between his teeth while he gazed at-nothing. When the cigar was thrown away and his head was turned from the window the structure dissolved, crumbled away with the ashes of the fragrant weed he had smoked in the process of building. Nothing was outside the window when he looked again except the site for another structure. But he built many such edifices.

Men commented upon his condition;

He

they wondered how he lived. seemed to prosper and they knew not how prosperity came to him. The world is ever wondering. Whatever may have caused wonder and comment, one feature remained unquestioned, he was prosperous in the possession of unqualified cheerfulness; no matter how far beyond his reach may have been the plans he drew, his imagination was loyal to them until they had been transformed into castles beyond the window-sill and wafted away on the curls of blue that floated noiselessly from his cigar, his chief clerk and advisor. It may be said that he measured perseverance by inches, not by the clock.

When evening came he would lock his desk, lay away his plans and his instruments, shrug himself as if tired, and go to his lodgings with all the feelings of a man greatly in need of repose. To the people on the street he was wont to speak of his fatigue; in his room his unconscious perseverance remained true and faithful, and it was easy for him to throw himself upon his couch and sleep, fully convinced that he had nearly overworked himself during the day. Was it strange, then, that he arose from his nap an hour or so later, greatly refreshed in every respect, particularly in ideas? If he overslept himself he did not complain, did not punish himself by working later or harder on the next day's castles; he only took a shorter nap the next evening.

George Ramor was undeniably peculiar. He was a source of wonder to his acquaintances; he was the best subject for gossip in all his set. As sets, no matter how exclusive they may be, are capable of branching out into other sets, in a way, indistinct, but surely, Mr. Ra