s are more valued in Cincinnati than the
signatures of these municipal magnates.

But let us look at the city. The river presents a novel and animated
scene. On the Kentucky shore lies Covington, dark and low, a mass of
brick factories and tall chimneys, from which the blackest smoke is
always ascending, and spreading over the valley, and filling it with
smoke. Over Cincinnati, too, a dense cloud of smoke usually hangs, every
chimney contributing its quota to the mass. The universal use of the
cheap bituminous coal (seventeen cents a bushel,--twenty-five bushels to
a ton) is making these Western cities almost as dingy as London. Smoke
pervades every house in Cincinnati, begrimes the carpets, blackens the
curtains, soils the paint, and worries the ladies. Housekeepers assured
us that the all-pervading smoke nearly doubles the labor of keeping a
house tolerably clean, and absolutely prevents the spotless cleanliness
of a Boston or Philadelphia house. A lady who wears light-colored
garments, ribbons, or gloves in Cincinnati must be either very young,
very rich, or very extravagant: ladies of good sense or experience never
think of wearing them. Clean hearts abound in Cincinnati, but not clean
hands. The smoke deposits upon all surfaces a fine soot, especially upon
men's woollen clothes, so that a man cannot touch his own coat without
blackening his fingers. The stranger, for a day or two, keeps up a
continual washing of his hands, but he soon sees the folly of it, and
abandons them to their fate. A letter written at Cincinnati on a damp
day, when the Stygian pall lies low upon the town, carries with it the
odor of bituminous smoke to cheer the homesick son of Ohio at Calcutta
or Canton. This universal smoke is a tax upon every inhabitant, which
can be estimated in money, and the sum total of which is millions per
annum. Is there no remedy? Did not Dr. Franklin invent a smoke-consuming
stove? Are there no Yankees in the West?

Before the traveller loitering along the levee has done wondering at the
smoke, his eye is caught by the new wire suspension bridge, which
springs out from the summit of the broad, steep levee to a lofty tower
(two hundred feet high) near the water's edge, and then, at one leap,
clears the whole river, and lands upon another tower upon the Covington
side. From tower to tower the distance is one thousand and fifty-seven
feet; the entire length of the bridge is two thousand two hundred and
fifty-two fe