ck-water of the Hughli with damp wood and no oil; pin me under a
Pullman car and let the lighted stove do its worst; sizzle me with a
fallen electric wire or whelm me in the sludge of a broken river dam;
but may I never go down to the Pit grinning out of a plate-glass window,
in a backless dress-coat, and the front half of a black stuff
dressing-gown; not though I were "held" against the ravage of the grave
for ever and ever. Amen!

No. XXXV

HOW I STRUCK CHICAGO, AND HOW CHICAGO STRUCK ME. OF RELIGION, POLITICS,
AND PIG-STICKING, AND THE INCARNATION OF THE CITY AMONG SHAMBLES.

"I know thy cunning and thy greed,
Thy hard, high lust and wilful deed,
And all thy glory loves to tell
Of specious gifts material."

I have struck a city,--a real city,--and they call it Chicago. The other
places do not count. San Francisco was a pleasure-resort as well as a
city, and Salt Lake was a phenomenon. This place is the first American
city I have encountered. It holds rather more than a million people with
bodies, and stands on the same sort of soil as Calcutta. Having seen it,
I urgently desire never to see it again. It is inhabited by savages. Its
water is the water of the Hugli, and its air is dirt. Also it says that
it is the "boss" town of America.

I do not believe that it has anything to do with this country. They told
me to go to the Palmer House, which is a gilded and mirrored
rabbit-warren, and there I found a huge hall of tessellated marble,
crammed with people talking about money and spitting about everywhere.
Other barbarians charged in and out of this inferno with letters and
telegrams in their hands, and yet others shouted at each other. A man
who had drunk quite as much as was good for him told me that this was
"the finest hotel in the finest city on God Almighty's earth." By the
way, when an American wishes to indicate the next county or State he
says, "God A'mighty's earth." This prevents discussion and flatters his
vanity.

Then I went out into the streets, which are long and flat and without
end. And verily it is not a good thing to live in the East for any
length of time. Your ideas grow to clash with those held by every
right-thinking white man. I looked down interminable vistas flanked with
nine, ten, and fifteen storied houses, and crowded with men and women,
and the show impressed me with a great horror. Except in London--and I
have forgotten what London is like--I had never see