owner. This cannot now be done. Neither can a majority (often representing little or no property) of any municipality, now vote to lend its credit or impose a debt upon the property of the minority for the benefit of some corporation or improvement.-The general assembly is prohibited from discharging any county, city or town from its proportionate share of taxes, the commutation of such taxes, or the diverting of them from the treasury, as under the railroad tax-grabbing law of 1869.-The revenue article of the old constitution has been rendered more efficient, and with late legislation will bear more evenly upon the property of the State.-The two-mill tax was abolished.-Minority representation in the legis lature, by means of cumulative voting, is a new but promising feature in the organic act, adopted for the first time by any State in the union. Our judiciary system has been rendered uniform, and greatly modified, whether for good requires to be ascertained. To county courts, as supplemented by a late law, have been given extended civil jurisdiction, and they are authorized to try minor criminal cases with a view of saving to counties large expenditures for boarding prisoners while awaiting the terms of the circuit courts. But the provision which seeks to control the railroads of the State, prohibiting parallel or competing lines from consolidation, and which declares all railroads public highways, requiring the general assembly to establish reasonable maximum rates of charges, and to prevent unjust dircriminations and extortions, is one which, if sustained by the courts, promises to be one of the most important in its beneficial results to the people, as it is one now eliciting the greatest public interest. The question whether a power has grown up in the State greater than the State itself is now in process of solution.

The Great Chicago Fire.-Chicago was first laid off in 1830, at the mouth of the river of that name. Prior to that the point was known as Fort Dearborn, built by the government in 1804. By an unprecedented growth and prosperity, Chicago had by 1871 attained to a city of 300,000 souls. As the radiating centre of more than a dozen trunk lines of railroads, reaching far into the interior, with their innumerable branches and connections, she is enabled to grasp with Briarian hands, as it were, the products of a vast and fertile region; possessed of an extended lake, canal, and river commerce, and a large manufacturing interest, and animated by enterprising and sagacious capitalists, energetic merchants and pushing business men generally, she was truly, not only the chief city of Illinois, but the emporium of the great northwest-the pride of her State and the wonder of the civilized world. While she had miles upon miles of structures of the most combustible nature, being wood, her large business centre was built up of brick, stone and iron blocks, massive in size and of rare architectural beauty; her palatial residences, profusely scattered through many parts of the city, but particularly toward the lake front, were the admiration of every visitor, besides her many well built, superb, and costly church edifices and various elegant public institutions, all these were solid, non-combustible structures, regarded as fire proof. But in the great conflagration, which, like death, knew no distinction, the stately block and most ornate column, as well as the lowliest wooden shanty of the poor, found a common leveler.

It was on the night of October 8th and 9th, 1871, that the ocean of flame burst upon the doomed city. For eighteen consecutive hours, borne by a parched and strong southwesterly gale, the Fire Fiend, gathering strength and volume as he marched, strode through the fated city. The fire broke out in a poor quarter 13 miles southwest from the business centre, which was closely built up of inferior structures that kindled like tinder and blazed like a bon fire. The flame, fanned by the gale, was so intense that the fire department was powerless before it. At midnight, having devoured 500 buildings, and burnt over an area of 175 acres, reaching the southern limits of the burnt district of the fire of the night proceeding, which was of no inconsiderable magnitude ordinarily, and which it was expected would arrest it, the licking column, casting a shower of kindling brands far in advance, easily leaped the south branch of the river, lighting where several blocks of wooden rookeries, the abodes of squalor and vice, afforded it vivifying food. Sending off flanking columns to the right and left, it pursued a due northeast course before the driving wind toward the court house, the large stone, brick and iron structures in its way, commonly called fire-proof, many of them among Chicago's handsomest blocks, crumbling and melting down by its su per-heated breath as completely, if not so speedily, as those of wood. All hope of staying its progress was now abandoned, and the efforts suspended. The court house, from whose basement, (the common jail) 150 prisoners were released to save their lives, was built of large blocks of stone, and though standing isolated in the middle of a square, succumbed, its great bell falling from the dome with a last dying peal. At this time, as if instinct with a deadly strategy, the fire disabled the pumping engines a mile in advance at the waterworks, which cut off the supply of water. Buildings now would suddenly ignite all over, and the danger to human life became exceedingly great.

The left flanking column of flame, gathering volume as it proceeded, swept all that part of the city in the angle made by the south branch and the main river. The right also gathering headway as it went, took a detour almost due east from the south branch toward the lake and northward, making a wide swath and rioting in the destruction of the most superb hotels, splendid business blocks, and elegant dwellings in the city. Here, in the south division, the fairest and most ornate portion of Chicago, and the great centre of her wealth and commerce, 460 acres were swept over by the terrible flames and 3,650 buildings laid in ashes. But aside from the great value and beauty of this portion of the city, less than one-third in territory, or the number of houses, was as yet swept over, or cunsumed. The three colums of flame, toward noon on the 9th, (Monday) intensified by their union, now vaulted across the river, and, marching in solid phalanx at double-quick, licked up everything in the way; the ocean of flame with a terrible crackling roar as it advanced, in a few hours burnt over an area of 1,470 acres of the 2,533 in the north division, leaving only 500 buildings standing out of the 13,800 which it contained, and rendering homeless 75,000 people.

As a spectacle the conflagration was at the same time the sublimest and most appalling-terrifying to the weak and unnerv ing the strong. The roaring flame and crackling wood, the crash

of falling buildings, the detonations of explosive material in them, and the maddened Babel of human voices, all intermingled, were awful and terrific in the last degree.

The scenes in the streets of the burning city beggar description. All the baser attributes of the human heart found manifestation. Fear, precipitancy, profanity, insults, obscenity, rapacity, theft, robbery, arson and assassination, all wrought to the highest pitch, with intoxication, and amid the noise, confusion and turmoil, found vent and ran riot. Great crowds, fascinated by a mingled feeling of horror and admiration at the grandeur of the terrible spectacle, moved with the dazzling columns of fire as it proceeded. Now and then the crash of a wall near at hand, the report of explosive oils, or the rumor that they were surrounded by the fire, or that a bridge was burnt to cut off their retreat would scatter them in precipitate flight, panic stricken. In many cases, people were driven into the lake for refuge against the scorching flames. Capitalists, rushing to their vaults to save their valuables, were overpowered by the suffocating heat, and never seen again; others, loaded with treasure, were stricken down by assassins and robbed. The speed of the conflagration and its great heat were such that it was impossible to save much property. Besides, owners of vehicles, taking advantage of the occasion, charged enormous prices for taking loads; $10 to $50 was common and $1,000 is recorded. Stores were opened and the crowds invited to help themselves to goods, as they must all go at any rate, while others were entered by hordes of plunderers unasked; and goods piled up in the streets to be carted away, were seized and freely borne off. The torch of the incendiary, for purposes of plundering, was added to the general conflagration. Saloons were thrown open, and under a free invitation, their contents flowed unchecked, maddening the vicious and stimulating to ruffianism. Amidst the turmoil of the crackling and roaring fire, falling walls, dazed animals dashing about, streets gorged by passing vehicles and crowds of people, and the shouting and uproar of men, families became separated, children cried for parents, wives and mothers wailed and became distracted and husbands and fathers, skurrying hither and thither in vain searchings for the lost ones, were frantic with agony and despair. It was a night of unspeakable horrors. Many incidents of tenants occupying rooms in the upper stories of high business blocks wrapt in flames, suddenly appearing at their windows begging for assistance from the frantic crowd below and some of whom found succor and others that perished, are related with thrilling effect in the papers of the time.

The loss of human life, which can never be accurately ascertained, has been estimated at 250. During the first two weeks following, the remains of 107 persons, consisting often of but fragments, or so charred that few could be identified, were collected by the coroner and interred. It is supposed that the intensity of the heat in many cases wholly consumed the bodies, leaving no vestige behind. The whole area burnt over, including streets, was 2,124 acres; number of buildings destroyed, 17,500; sidewalks burnt, 121 miles; total value of property swallowed up by the devouring element, $195,000,000, on which there was an insurance of some $45,000,000, leaving a net loss $150,000,000-these figures being approximate.

See History of Chicago and the Great Conflagration.

About 98,500 people were bereft, not only of homes, business, and property, but even shelter. These collected at points on the beach of the lake, in the old cemetery south of Lincoln Park, but mostly on the bleak prairie back of the city. Many were blinded from smoke and blistered with heat. Not less than one hundred women were thrown into premature parturion from fright and the excitement caused by the terrible scene. All, the sick and helpless, the young and old, the vile and vicious, the beggar and millionaire, were here promiscuously huddled together. Without sufficient clothing in the chill October rain, which set in during the night of Monday; destitute of food since Sunday, and all more or less exhausted from hunger, the suffering of the smitten ones was exceedingly great.

And now was manifested on the part of the people of this broad land and the civilized portions of Europe, whither the shock had thrilled, a noble sympathy and practical benevolence, attesting the brotherhood of man. First the people for hundreds of miles in every direction, in prompt response to the click of the telegraph (and but for this modern handmaid to the business of the world, many must have perished), sent in hundreds of car loads of cooked food and provisions of all kinds and raiment of every description, in quantities more than sufficient to relieve the wants of the suf ferers. Bureaus, to systematically distribute the donations, were organized. Next, and almost simultaneously, followed most liberal contributions of money in large sums by nearly all our great and many small cities and some from Europe, aggregating some $7.000,000. Governor Palmer, deeming it a proper occasion, convened the general assembly in extraordinary session on the 4th day after the fire, and that body donated virtually to the stricken city, $2,955,340 from the treasury of the State-finding in the great emergency a way to evade the strict provisions of the new constitution for this purpose by redeeming the canal from the lien of its deepening by Chicago, which, though a valuable improvement to that city, is dead and unyielding capital to the State; but no one will blame the legislature for this benevolent act, so necessary under the circumstances. Six per centum bonds, payable in 10 years, were to be issued for that amount. Not less than onefifth nor more than one-third of the proceeds were to be used in restoring the bridges and public buildings on the old sites, and the residue in payment of the bonded debt of the city, and to maintain its fire and police departments.

Immediately succeding the fire, stories of incendiarism for purposes of plunder became rife; that theft, robberies, and arson were the order in the unburnt portions of the city, and that hordes of "roughs" from other large cities were on the point of invasion. The ignorant, desperate from their losses, were represented as possessed by a mania for further destruction; others in great masses, together with the police, as taking the law into their own hands, shooting down, beating to death, or hanging to lamp-posts, numerous alleged offenders, without close scrutiny as to their guilt or innocence. These stories which were utterly untrue, gained credence in the city at the time and a considerable panic prevailed. Telegrams disseminating them were sent broad cast over the land, and the flying fugitives from the city, whose exodus by the 16th, amounted to 60,000, impressed with these stories,

spread reports of seeing blackened corpses of robbers and incendiaries hanging to gibbets. Gen. Anson Stager, a prominent citizen, telegraphed Gov. Palmer on the 10th that great consternation and anxiety existed on account of the presence of "roughs" and thieves, plundering in all directions, and that two incendiaries were shot the night preceding while in the act of firing buildings.

Under the apprehensions prevailing, the police force was largely increased, 1,500 being sworn in on the west side, and 500 on the south. Indeed, on Monday morning, Major Alstruf had tendered the services of a battalion of three militia companies to the superintendent and were accepted. Gov. Palmer, in answer to Gen. Stager's dispatch, proffered a military force to the city, to preserve property and enforce order, which, in the reply by telegraph, was immediately requested by the mayor, to be sent by special train, and later on the same day, 1,000 muskets and amunition were also asked. Adjutant Gen. H. Dilger, at once, by telegraph, ordered to Chicago the "Bloomington National Guards," "Champaign Cadets," "Sterling City Guards," Rock Fall Zouaves," "Rock Island Light Artillery" with four pieces; and under his immediate charge, the "Springfield Zouaves," "O'Mara Guards," and Capt. Donigan's colored company, 200 men, the latter arriving there early the next day, the 11th, and before evening the other militia companies also arrived, making a military force of 516 men, well armed and equiped to protect the property, maintain order, and enforce the laws in the city. But Gen. Dilger now found the wild rumors of lawlessness to have been greatly exaggerated, and the mayor, professing no knowledge of the dispatches calling for State troops and, at the time, confiding in the strong arm of the military power of the U. S., was ready to issue his proclamation entrusting the peace of the city to Lieut. Gen. Phil. H. Sheridan, of the U. S. army, who was stationed there. The State authority being thus superceded by that of the U. S., Gen. Dilger, with a portion of his force, after some three days time, returned. Some of the police authorities, jealous of the military occupation thus assumed, protested against it for the reason that policemen were acqainted with the people and possessed large discretionary powers in the arrest of parties, the prevention of breaches of the peace, and the commission of crimes; while a soldier was the rigid instrument of orders, regardless of consequences. The city, however, was surrendered to the military, U. S. regulars being ordered thither from Omaha, Forts Leavenworth and Scott, and from Louisville. The police were ordered to act in conjunction with the military, good order was maintained throughout, and, what was perhaps of more importance than all else, confidence was restored.

At the time that the city was thus turned over to military rule, Gen. Sheridan directed a citizen of Chicago, Gen. Frank T. Sherman, to enlist and organize a regiment of infantry for 20 days, to serve as guards in protecting the property of the city. They swore allegiance to the U. S. and obedience to the officers appointed over them; they were to arrest all citizens who, in their judgment, might be suspicious persons, and fire upon, wound or kill any one refusing to obey their commands to halt, after a certain hour in the night. In the regiment was a company of cadets