nues of New York, Broadway excepted. Water street, parallel with the river, on the south side, is the street for heavy trade. Lake street, next south, is the principal dry goods and retail shopping mart. But business is by no means confined to a narrow locality. Over a space of from one to two miles in each direction, every avenue is alive with the stir and bustle of an active, enterprising population.

At intervals, along the river, rising above surrounding objects, are large, irregular structures, five or six stories in height, surmounted by square turretlike attics, rising twenty or thirty feet more. These are the grain warehouses and elevators for unloading, cleaning, storing, weighing, and reshipping the wheat which comes in by the cars and is to go out in the vessels. The grain is raised from the cars by buckets on an endless belt, like those in an ordinary mill, only containing about a peck each. It is thus carried up into the turrets, being fanned and screened by the way, where it falls into a hopper, is weighed and runs through a trough down into the hold of a vessel lying along-side to receive it.

From the top of these elevators, though by no means a clean and comfortable place to reach, one can get a fine view of all that he can see. Chicago stands, as everything else does in Illinois, on a prairie, which may be described as a country having a face but no features. On the east lies the lake, with its ever-rolling surface of bluish green; on all other sides, the prairie, unbroken in its level, save by the structures of man. A low line of trees in the west, however, some seven miles distant from the city, marks the course of the river Desplaines, one of the main feeders of the Illinois. For sunrises and sunsets this country ought to be unsurpassed.

THE OLD FORT.

In a back yard on one of the narrow streets, near the great dépôt of the Illinois central road, stands a small log building, not more than sixteen feet square, and about the same height, with a projection at the top; the whole structure resembling a good sized Virginia smoke-house. This is the fortification which figures in our history as Fort Dearborn; nor have I, in the least, exaggerated its insignificance. It

is what is called a block-house, and the projection at the top has a slit, some six feet long and three inches wide, for musketry, and a large square hole for a small piece of artillery. Near by are the Barracks, two long two-story buildings, built of logs and brick, with projecting eaves and stairs, and galleries on the outside-looking like the farmhouse to which the smoke-house belonged. I would like to know how many thousand dollars were appropriated by Congress to build that fort. The United States still own the fort and ground, and have erected near by a commodious and elegant marine hospital, built of Milwaukie brick. I regret to hear that the fort and barracks are to be torn away during the coming summer; they ought to have been preserved, with sufficient ground to form a public park.

On the opposite side of the street from the fort, in another yard and still further from the lake, surrounded by buildings higher than itself, stands a substantial stone light-house. It once did duty nearer the lake shore; but, having long been a faithful public servant, it has retired in a green old age to spend the remainder of its years in an unostentatious privacy; not that it has itself moved, but, like those venerable men in knee-breeches, it has stood still while the lake shore and the rest of the world have pushed far out beyond it, and its duty is now performed by a young upstart of a light-house, standing on the pier at the mouth of the river.

"Hic in obscuritate lucet,
Quæ in auctoritate stetit."

WATER

is supplied to the city, pumped up from the lake into a reservoir, and distributed by pipes. A small portion of the lake is fenced off by a pier of piles and earth; a pipe is laid from the pond thus formed to a tank or well a few rods distant; over the tank is placed the enginehouse and pumps, and the thing is done. No further filtration is deemed necessary; the water is abundant and good. The ice obtained here, I have never seen equaled. It would do Dr. Kane good to see it. Huge blocks of it, eight feet high and two feet square, have been standing about on the sidewalks this winter as samples, and through the thickest of these I have read with ease

the smallest type of the New York daily

papers.

HOTELS.

On this topic, so interesting to the traveler, I ought to be full and satisfactory; but I can only say that at the Briggs House, where I spent some weeks, I did not enter my name with any title, either civil, military, or medical, I did not report myself as a member of the press, a public lecturer, or an actor, nor did I intimate that I expected to publish an article on Chicago, nevertheless, I was civilly treated, provided with a comfortable room, and plenty to eat, and paid my bill of $2.50 per day at the end of the time, satisfied that the same comfort was not to be had for less money, anywhere in Chicago. Higher praise for a hotel, I think, cannot well be imagined. To hotel-keepers in Chicago there is no rest, and but a limited supply to lodgers. All night long, some of the one hundred trains, that daily arrive and depart, is either arriving or departing. It is either "3 o'clock, sir," or 4 o'clock, sir," or "5 o'clock, sir," as you are constantly informed during the night, by somebody pounding at your neighbor's door or your own. breakfast lasts until 10 o'clock, and when everybody has got up, then there are a few quiet hours during which the rest can sleep, and they are generally well improved.

THE BILL OF FARE.

But

Lind. The first mode of spelling is more phonographic, Websterian, and independent.

The white fish and trout of the upper lakes, I heard so highly commended, that I had made up my palate for a delicacy, which proved to be figuratively, as well as literally, a scaly one. They are, both of them, a rank, coarse fish, entirely inferior to our cod, bass, fresh mackerel, or blue fish, and not to be spoken of in connection with Connecticut river shad. I have tried them at divers places, and cooked in various ways, still my experience is the same. Perhaps the white fish is equal in flavor to the halibut, certainly not supe

rior.

A gentleman, who was not fond of fish, told me that he thought I might get better at Mackinaw; but as these came fresh from Green Bay, I saw no reason to think so. The pickerel I preferred to the trout and white fish. I have, on one occasion only, eaten the fish called muskalonge, boiled; this was at Cleveland, and I then considered it very fine; but whether it was owing to the quality of the fish or my appetite, I cannot now

say.

Prairie chickens and venison are so common in the eastern markets, that they hardly deserve notice. The prairie chicken is about the size of the domestic bantams, and in color and flavor resembles the pigeon. The wild goose I forgot to taste. The advertisement for North's Circus, and Mr. Neafie's appearance in Jack Cade, are at the bottom of the bill.

Chicago already requires a directory of two hundred and fifty pages, solid matter, without the advertisements; and from this work I learn that there are nine omnibus routes, thirteen rail-road lines, converging here, sixteen newspapers, of which sir are published daily, sixty clergymen, and two hundred and twenty lawyers.

I occasionally spent an hour in some of the courts; but as the bar is composed mainly of men not very long from the East, there is little to strike an eastern man as peculiar. There is rather more freedom in illustration, and more frequent use of phrases which, of themselves, mean little or nothing, but as delivered with a tone and manner implying great import. There is also a much more frequent reference to general principles, and to organic laws,

than in those states where precedents are more abundant. This feature, when able counsel are employed, frequently gives to the argument a breadth and scope which render the proceedings more attractive to a casual spectator than the dry citation of authorities, usually heard in our eastern courts. I was quite interested, on one occasion, by hearing a lawyer, who was himself an old settler residing in one of the country towns, and was trying to make good his client's pre-emption title, against a more recent claimant, under a tax sale, or some other hocus-pocus procedure, describe with no little eloquence how his client and his neighbors had fought and suffered in defense of that land in the days of the Black Hawk war. But the law was on the other side; the jury were proof against prejudice, though the point was ingeniously presented, and the fighter of Indians lost his case. Perhaps poetical justice to the Indians was thus preserved, and perhaps not. I have not a very high respect for Indians, and prefer plain white to any other color, both for men and women.

The judges, jury, and lawyers patronize the apple-boys rather more freely than would be considered proper in some places; and one occasion, when a military company passed in the street, lawyers, sheriff, jury, and spectators, in fact, everybody, except the judge, made a general stampede to the windows to see them go by. I went with the rest.

THE FEDERAL CURRENCY

is assuming the ascendant throughout the West, and dimes and half dimes are driving sixpences and shillings to the wall. As a natural consequence, one pays in most cases ten cents for what used to cost six. A tribute to patriotism. I noticed at the bar, however, that drinks are but a dime. pose, in this case, the other party can afford to pay the tribute.

I sup

SUNDAY IN CHICAGO, though not observed as it is in New England, is, I think, more respected than in any town of 20,000 inhabitants, or upwards, south of Philadelphia. Some few stores are seen open, but not of a prominent class. The movement of the people is generally churchward, and the churches are well filled. The

streets are quiet; and, though I have no doubt that, in a place of such varying population, where people of all grades of character are congregated, without the restraints of home to the well-disposed, and of an efficient police to the vicious, crime and immorality exist to an alarming extent; yet the Puritan element so far predominates in the population of the place, that wickedness is neither popular nor respectable.

Speculation, too great eagerness to get rich on the part of men who have nothing to lose, and a lack of those healthful restraints which exist in an older community, have, undoubtedly, combined to weaken and lower the moral sense of the people, in regard to business transactions. There is a leniency exhibited towards sharp bargains, overreaching, undue coloring, and actual misrepresentation (doubtless, more apparent to a stranger than to a resident, and for that reason just so much the more dangerous), which, if allowed to go unchecked, will, by degrees, destroy that vital morality which is indispensable to the prosperity of a commercial state. This is not a peculiar fault of Chicago, but of the whole West; and as men grow more independent in their resources, and temptations for speculation decrease, the evil may abate; but it deserves notice, and demands vigilance.

In one of the most conspicuous corners in Chicago is a large six-story building, which deserves a passing notice. It was built (so I was told) by a clerk in the city, with funds purloined from his employer. When detection qecame unavoidable, he left town, and sent back an agent to negotiate. The matter was finally arranged by the employer taking the building, and paying the thief ten thousand dollars; and it was remarked, so great had been the rise in the value of the property, that even then the employer had altogether the best of the bargain. I ought to add, that I do not think that this was regarded as a legitimate business transaction.

Such was Chicago, as I saw it, looking at the outside of things, in the fall and winter of 1855-6. What it will be next year at this time-ten years hence -fifty years hence those who live shall see. If any one wishes to guess, an opportunity is now offered.

IN

a former article, based mainly on the same authentic collection of confidential letters referred to at the foot of the page, or, rather, on the Memoires du Roi Joseph, whence the English collection has been drawn, we gave a history of the Bonaparte family, and especially of Napoleon's relations to it, down to his assumption of the imperial dignity, and, indeed, during the first year or two of the Empire.

We now take up the narrative where that article dropped it, and continue this family history, drawing mainly from the same source, which, for the history of Napoleon as an individual, and of his family relations, furnishes materials far more authentic and trustworthy than any hitherto accessible to the public.

Upon the year preceding the assumption of the imperial dignity, and the first sixteen months of the Empire, this correspondence unfortunately throws no light, as there are no letters between those dates. The correspondence be tween Napoleon and his brother Joseph only commences again in the autumn of 1805, when Napoleon set off on his campaign against Austria, leaving Joseph as his representative in Paris. He who was merely "citizen Joseph" at the date of the last preceding letter, was now a prince, and a high dignitary of the Empire. The familiar style of that early correspondence is dropped, and, instead of “Adieu, dear Joseph," we have the formal, imperial, "Whereupon I pray God to keep you in his holy and worthy protection." Joseph addresses Napoleon only as "Sire," Sire," and "Your Majesty," and the general tone of his letters is quite as much that of a subject as of a brother, evincing extreme devotion to all the Emperor's wishes.

The following letter, written just after the treaty of Presburg, shows the resolution which Napoleon began now to entertain, to ingraft his family upon the old regal stocks of Europe:

"Munich, Dec. 31st, 1805. My Brother-I have demanded in marriage for prince Eugene

[already appointed viceroy of Italy], princess Augusta, daughter of the Elector of Bavaria, and a very pretty person. The marriage has been agreed on. I have demanded another princess for Jerome. As you have seen him last, tell me if I can reckon on the young

man's consent. [As preliminary to this marriage, Jerome was required to repudiate his American wife, and to bastardize his American son.] I have also arranged a marriage for your eldest daughter, with a small prince, who in time will become a great one. As this last marriage cannot take place for some months [Joseph's eldest daughter was not yet above two or three years old], I shall have time to talk to you about it."

By another letter, written at an earlier hour on the same day, Joseph himself, apparently without ever having been consulted on the matter, or, indeed, receiving the least hint of it, had been suddenly ordered on an expedition designed to raise him also to a throne. That letter was as follows:

"My Brother-I am at Munich. I shall remain here a few days, to receive the ratification of the treaty, and to give to the army its last orders. I intend to take possession of the kingdom of Naples. Marshal Massena and General St. Cyr are marching on that kingdom, with two corps d'armée. I have named you my lieutenant commanding-in-chief the army of Naples. [Joseph, as well as Napoleon, had been educated at one of the old royal military schools, but had resigned his

claims to a commission to make room for Napoleon, as it required more interest than the Bonapartes possessed to obtain two commissions in the same family. He had subsequently studied law in Italy, and had commenced practice in Ajaccio; but, like many other neophytes of that profession, had never had but one case. Before leaving Corsica, he had obtained an appointment in the civil administration of the island, and under the Directory and the Consulate he had held, by his brother's influence, high diplomatic appointments. Lately, at Napoleon's suggestion, he had again put himself under military tuition, and had been taking regular lessons from an officer selected by Napoleon to instruct him in the art of war.] Set off for Rome forty hours after the receipt of this letter, and let your first dispatch inform me that you have entered Naples, driven out the treacherous court, and subjected that part of Italy to our authority You will find at the head-quarters of the army the decrees and instructions relating to your mission. You will wear the uniform of a general of division. As my lieutenant, you will have all the marshals under your orders. Your command does not extend beyond the army and the Neapolitan territory. If my presence were not necessary in Paris, I would

march myself on Naples; but with the generals whom you have, and the instructions which you will receive, you will do all that I could. Do not say whither you are going, except to the arch-chancellor; let it be known only by your letters from the army."

and let no one rob. [No one, that is, but you and I.)"

In a subsequent letter, he thus resumes the subject of providing for Bernadotte :

"St. Cloud, June 3d, 1806. I had thought

"Munich, Jan. 9th, 1806. Madame, my sister-in-law-I settled, some time ago, the marriage of my son, prince Eugene, with the princess Augusta, daughter of the king of Bavaria. [The elector of Bavaria had just assumed the title of king.] The elector of Ratisbon [one of Napoleon's ephemeral princes] marries them at Munich on the 15th of January. I am detained, therefore, for a few days longer in this town.

"The princess Augusta is one of the handsomest and most accomplished persons of her sex. It would be proper, think, that you should make her a present, costing from fifteen to twenty thousand francs. She will set off for Italy on the 20th of January. The king of Bavaria will write to you to announce the marriage. Whereupon I pray God. madame, my sister-in-law, to keep you in his holy and worthy protection."

On the 18th of February, Napoleon wrote to Joseph as follows:

"Caution is no longer necessary. You are already master of Naples, and on the point of taking Sicily by surprise; this is your chief aim. You should entitle your acts-Joseph Napoleon, you need not add Bonaparte."

From the time of his assumption of the imperial crown, Napoleon, în all his family and personal arrangements, had aped old regal and imperial usages; and as the oldest of the royal families of Europe had no surnames, he was resolved that he and his family should have none. So Bonaparte was to be dropped, and Napoleon substituted for it.

In the letter, some six weeks after, in which Napoleon announces to Joseph his definitive installment as king of Naples, he makes the following suggestions as to Joseph's brother-in-law, Bernadotte, the husband of the Eugenie whom Napoleon did not marry :

"Paris, March 31st, 1806. You will see that I have created six fiefs in your kingdom. You had better, I think, give the best to Marshal Bernadotte, with the title of Duke of Taranto. [That title was afterwards conferred on Macdonald, Bernadotte, as we shall see, being otherwise provided.] Your connection with Bernadotte, whose children are your nephews, requires you to give him some privileges in your palace. You should secure him four or five hundred thousand francs a year. The queen of Naples did as much for Nelson. I reward, as you see, and intend to reward, my generals and soldiers nobly. Be inflexible,

territories of Benevento and Ponte Corvo could not fail to be troublesome to your kingdom. I have made them into two duchiesthat of Benevento for Talleyrand, and that of Ponte Corvo for Bernadotte. I know that these provinces are poor, but Talleyrand is rich, and I will make Bernadotte's duchy worth having. You must be aware that I give the titles of duke and prince to Bernadotte for your wife's sake, [partly, perhaps, too, for Eugenie's sake; for I have in my army generals who have served me better, and on whose attachment I have more reason to rely. [Bernadotte had taken no part in the famous 18th of Brumaire, which made Napoleon first consul, and laid the foundations of the empire.] But I thought that it was proper that the brother-in-law of the queen of Naples should have a distinguished position in your kingdom."

Joseph being thus made a king, Napoleon began to look round for thrones for the younger brothers also. Lucien still obstinately refused either to accept a throne-held, as it must have been, as Napoleon's vassal-or to part with his wife; nor was even Louis half so anxious to be a king as Napoleon was to make him one. The fol

lowing letters, which mention the crown bestowed upon Louis, contain references also to Jerome and to Fesch, the maternal uncle of the Bonapartes, who by this time had been made a cardinal:

"St. Cloud, May 19th, 1806. The business with Holland is settled, and before long, Louis will be king of Holland. He is willing; but his health continues to be indifferent. It appears that the squadron that Jerome is in, and which has been to the East Indies, has captured a large English convoy, and three men-of-war. I have no anxiety about this squadron."

"June 3d, 1806. In an hour I am to receive the Turkish ambassador, proclaim prince Louis king of Holland, and cardinal Fesch coadjutor of the elector, the arch-chancellor."

The office of king, held under Napoleon, was not found by his brothers so very agreeable. It may well be doubted whether Joseph, from the moment he accepted the unlucky crown of Naples, till after seven years he fairly got rid of the still more unlucky Spanish crown-which, in lieu of that of Naples, Napoleon presently thrust upon himreally enjoyed a single day of ease, peace, and comfort. He had taken up the idea, that to maintain himself on the thrones of Naples and Spain, all that