see the slaughter,
as they would come to see the slaughter of men. And there entered that
vermilion hall a young woman of large mould, with brilliantly scarlet
lips, and heavy eyebrows, and dark hair that came in a "widow's peak" on
the forehead. She was well and healthy and alive, and she was dressed in
flaming red and black, and her feet (know you that the feet of American
women are like unto the feet of fairies?) her feet, I say, were cased in
red leather shoes. She stood in a patch of sunlight, the red blood under
her shoes, the vivid carcasses packed round her, a bullock bleeding its
life away not six feet away from her, and the death factory roaring all
round her. She looked curiously, with hard, bold eyes, and was not
ashamed.

Then said I: "This is a special Sending. I have seen the City of
Chicago." And I went away to get peace and rest.

No. XXXVI

HOW I FOUND PEACE AT MUSQUASH ON THE MONONGAHELA.

"Prince, blown by many a western breeze
Our vessels greet you treasure-laden;
We send them all--but best of these
A free and frank young Yankee maiden."

It is a mean thing and an unhandsome to "do" a continent in
five-hundred-mile jumps. But after those swine and bullocks at Chicago I
felt that complete change of air would be good. The United States at
present hinge in or about Chicago, as a double-leaved screen hinges. To
be sure, the tiny New England States call a trip to Pennsylvania "going
west," but the larger-minded citizen seems to reckon his longitude from
Chicago. Twenty years hence the centre of population--that shaded square
on the census map--will have shifted, men say, far west of Chicago.
Twenty years later it will be on the Pacific slope. Twenty years after
that America will begin to crowd up, and there will be some trouble.
People will demand manufactured goods for their reduced-establishment
households at the cheapest possible rates, and the cry that the land is
rich enough to afford protection will cease with a great abruptness. At
present it is the farmer who pays most dearly for the luxury of high
prices. In the old days, when the land was fresh and there was plenty
of it and it cropped like the garden of Eden, he did not mind paying.
Now there is not so much free land, and the old acres are needing
stimulants, which cost money, and the farmer, who pays for everything,
is beginning to ask questions. Also the great American nation, which
individually never shuts a