izon, and shut out the further view. Many stories are told to show
how absolutely and instinctively your true Westerner ignores the Eastern
States and cities. Here is one of the most characteristic. A little girl
came into the smoking car of a train somewhere in Kansas or Nebraska,
and stood beside her father, who was in conversation with another man.
The father put his arm round her and said to his companion, "She's been
a great traveller, this little girl of mine. She's only ten years old,
and she's been all over the United States."

"You don't say!" replied the other; "all over the United States?"

"Yes, sir; all over the United States," said the proud father; and then
added, as though the detail was scarcely worth mentioning, "except east
of Chicago."

Chicago, unfortunately, marks the limit of my wanderings; so I shall
return to England without having seen anything of the United States,
except for a sort of Pisgah-glimpse from the tower of the Auditorium.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote H: My own visit to Detroit illustrated this vagueness of the
average Englishman. I was anxious to see Mr. James A. Herne's famous
play, _Shore Acres_, and learned from Mr. Herne that it would be played
by a travelling company at Buffalo on a certain date. I carefully noted
the place and day, but contrived to mix up Buffalo and Detroit in my
mind, and arrived on the appointed day in Detroit--nearly two hundred
and fifty miles from the appointed place! It was as though, having
arranged to be in Brighton at a certain time, one should go instead to
Scarborough.]

LETTER IX

Chicago--Its Splendour and Squalor--Mammoth Buildings--Wind, Dust, and
Smoke--Culture--Chicago's Self-Criticism--Postscript: Social Service in
America.

CHICAGO.

When I was in America twenty-two years ago, Chicago was the city that
interested me least. Coming straight from San Francisco--which, in the
eyes of a youthful student of Bret Harte, seemed the fitting metropolis
of one of the great realms of romance--I saw in Chicago the negation of
all that had charmed me on the Pacific slope. It was a flat and grimy
abode of mere commerce, a rectilinear Glasgow; and to an Edinburgh man,
or rather boy, no comparison could appear more damaging. How different
is the impression produced by the Chicago of to-day! In 1877 the city
was extensive enough, indeed, and handsome to boot, in a commonplace,
cast-iron fashion. It was a chequer-board of Queen-Victoria-street