The city of Chicago—who shall portray¹ it! This vast ruck of life that had sprung suddenly into existence upon the dank marshes² of a lake shore. Miles and miles of dreary³ little houses; miles and miles of wooden block-paved streets, with gas lamps placed and water mains laid, and empty wooden walks set for pedestrians⁴; the beat of a hundred thousand hammers; the ring of a hundred thousand trowels! Long, converging⁵ lines of telegraph poles; thousands upon thousands of sentinel cottages, factory plants, towering smoke stacks, and here and there a lone⁶, shabby church steeple, sitting out pathetically upon vacant land. The raw prairie stretch was covered with yellow grass; the great broad highways of the tracks of railroads, ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty, laid side by side and strung with thousands upon thousands of shabby cars, like beads⁷ upon a string. Engines clanging, trains moving, people waiting at street crossings—pedestrians, wagon⁸ drivers, street car drivers, drays of beer, trucks of coal, brick, stone, sand—a spectacle of new, raw, necessary life!