CHICAGO                                                     381                                                       CHICAGO

south division are connected with each other and with many smaller parks and open squares by boulevards. Michigan Avenue, Jackson Boulevard and the Lake Shore Drive link the limits with the business section. The extension of Grant Park a mile out into the lake will give Chicago one of the most beautiful down-town waterfronts in the world.

Business is on the same gigantic and aspiring scale as the sky-scrapers, "City Beautiful" plans and the growth in population, which in 1010 aggregated 2,185,283. The earliest lines of trade to be developed, when the western limit of commerce was the Mississippi, were grain and lumber. With the spanning of the river by rail and the development of the wheat states of the northwest, the Chicago Board of Trade ruled the grain-market. The conquering of the Great American Desert confirmed her sovereignty. In 1909 Chicago received 27,000,000 bushels of wheat, nearly 275,000,000 bushels of corn, oats, etc., and 8,526,207 barrels of flour. The city has 79 elevator warehouses with a grain-storage capacity of 58,700,000 bushels. The prairie country's greatest need was for building material. This Chicago supplied from the forests of Michigan and Wisconsin. With the partial exhaustion of these forests the lumber-trade declined, and now stands in the fourth or fifth place at $70,000,000. The packing-industry which began in the 40's, in a small way, to supply lake-vessels and lumber-camps with salted and smoked meats, received its first impetus from the Civil War, and its second and greater one from the invention of refrigerator-cars by which fresh carcasses may be shipped to any part of the world. In 1907 the stockyards and packing-houses of Chicago did a total of $360,000,000 business and employed 45,000 men, ten per cent, of the city's labor. The iron-and-steel-industry, which has grown up since the discovery of iron ore in the Lake Superior region, amounts to $110,000,000; farm-implements $86,000,000; and the manufacture of clothing, which began in the outfitting of 49ers in the rush for the California gold-fields, turned $71,000,000 into Chicago's pockets last year. The manufacture of electrical machinery, which began scarcely 20 years ago, now aggregates $70,000,000 a year. At the packing houses, the International Harvester works and the plant of the Western Electric Company visitors are welcome and processes are explained. At the electric works the making of telephones and dynamos is especially interesting and of educational value. The wage pay-roll of Chicago manufactories amounts annually to $137,000,000, and in value of manufactured products Chicago ranks second in the list of American cities.

In the wholesale trade dry goods lead

with $200,000,000, produce $160,000,000 groceries $100,000,000, boots and shoes $60,000,000 and the mail order business, which enters all lines, $90,000,000. Manufactured articles are carried chiefly by rail; raw material, such as coal, iron ore, grain and lumber, etc., as largely as possible by water in the six months' open season. In 1908 6,441 vessels, with a tonnage of 7,290,745, cleared in Chicago's two harbors.

The city owns and operates its waterworks and municipal electric lighting-plants, and has a partnership interest in, and the right to purchase, its street-railway surface-lines. The surface-mileage has trebled in ten years and is now 1,364 miles. The elevated mileage has doubled to 144 miles. The form of government is typical. The departments of police, fire, health, water, etc. are under separate heads, and the schools, library and park systems are managed by boards. The old, corrupt system of police-court justice has been abolished and municipal courts established. For the child delinquents and defendants there is a juvenile court in its own building, one of the first in the world. To support the city government with its 191.39 square miles of territory and its 21,000 officials and employees, Chicago had in 1909, a revenue of $47,316977.09, on an actual valuation of real and personal property of $2,546,983,608.

More than half of Chicago's population is of foreign birth or parentage. With over 40 nationalities listed by the last census, the Germans lead with 416,000, Irish 215,000, Poles 109.000 Swedes 100,000, Bohemians 76,000, Norwegians 41,000, Italians 26,000. In many of the 407 school-buildings few of the pupils ever hear a word of English at home. There are 6,383 teachers and 300,893 pupils in the day-schools. In the night-schools are 25,000 more, chiefly foreigners. There are 18 high-schools, two of which are manual training, and a normal college. A downtown commercial college is to be established. The public library has 400,000 volumes for free circulation and reference, with many branch distributing stations. Of the endowed libraries, the Newberry covers history and music; the John Crerar library, science and mechanics; the Chicago Historical Society is the custodian of local history, relics and documents. The Art Institute, which has some notable collections, is free to the public three days in the week, and maintains an art-school. In the Thomas Orchestra Hall, Chicago stands alone, among American cities, in the possession of an endowed home for orchestral music; and in the Field Columbian Museum' of Natural History and Anthropology, endowed with $8,000,000 by the late Marshall Field, Chicago will