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st Sumter and the city. Its shells had wrought destruction in all parts of the city, especially in its lower portions. On February seventeenth, 1865, Charleston, which had withstood all attacks from the seaward, capitulated to the Union forces, Columbia having been captured by Sherman.

During the early part of the eighteenth century the war of Queen Anne against France and Spain greatly disturbed the young colony; and a little later the Indians threatened its existence. All the inhabitants of the region took refuge at Charleston, which was vigorously defended.

In 1700, the same year that Kidd was captured and taken to England, no less then seven pirates were secured, and executed at Charleston. Subsequently others shared the same fate.

South Carolina was among the foremost of the American colonies to strike for independence. On the twenty-eighth of June, 1776, Charleston was attacked by the British, an attempt being made to destroy the military works on Sullivan's Island. But Colonel Moultrie, in honor of whom the fort was subsequently named, made a gallant defence and repulsed them. In 1779 they made a second attack upon the city, this time approaching it by land, but were again compelled to retreat. Sir Henry Clinton, with seven or eight thousand men, opened his batteries upon Charleston on the second of April, 1780. Fort Moultrie, on Sullivan's Island, was compelled to surrender on the fourteenth, and the city yielded on May eleventh. The British retained possession of the city until the close of the war.

Charleston took a prominent part in the passage of the nullification act by the State, which maintained that any one of the States might set aside or nullify any act of Congress which it deemed unconstitutional or oppressive. The occasion of this nullification act was the Tariff Laws of 1828, which were not considered favorable to the Southern States. A convention of the State declared them null and void, and made preparations to resist their execution. John C. Calhoun, who was at that time Vice-President under Andrew Jackson, resigned his office, became a leader in the nullification movement, and was the father of the doctrine of State Sovereignty, the legitimate outcome of the principles of which was the late attempt to dissolve the Union.

The population of Charleston in 1800 was 18,711; in 1850, 42,985 inhabitants; in 1860, 40,519; in 1870, 48,956; and in 1880, 50,000 inhabitants. It has not made so rapid a growth as other cities, even in the South, but is, nevertheless, a prosperous town, with large commercial, and since the war, large manufacturing interests. It is one of the chief shipping ports for cotton, and also exports rice, lumber, naval stores and fertilizers. Immense beds of marl were discovered in the vicinity of the city in 1868, and now the manufacture of fertilizers from marl and phosphate is one of its principal industries. There are also flour and rice mills, carriage and wagon factories and machine shops. The city is learning that the surest foundation stone for its future prosperity is its manufacturing interests; and, probably, the political battle of 1861, could it be fought over again to-day, in that city, would find the nullifiers largely in the minority. The city which was so marred and blemished during its long state of siege, has been rebuilt, and all traces of the fratricidal conflict removed; and though Charleston would not be true to her traditions if she did not still cherish a strong Southern sentiment, the years which have passed since the cessation of hostilities have done much toward softening the asperities of feeling on both sides.

As a seaboard city, Charleston is most favorably situated. It has an excellent harbor, seven miles in length, with an average width of two miles, landlocked on all sides, except an entrance about a mile in width. This entrance is blocked by a bar, which, however, serves both as a bulwark and a breakwater. Of its two passages, its best gives twenty-two feet in depth at flood tide, and sixteen feet at ebb.

The harbor of Charleston is impregnable, as the Union troops learned to their cost during the late war. Standing directly in the channel are forts Ripley and Sumter. On a point extending out into the strait, between the two, is Fort Johnson. Directly in front of the city, one mile distant from it, is Castle Pinckney, covering the crest of a mud shoal, and facing the entrance. Sullivan's Island, a long, low, gray stretch of an island, dotted here and there by clumps of palmettoes, lies on the north of the entrance of the harbor, with Fort Moultrie on its extreme southern point, as a doorkeeper to the harbor. On the southern side is Morris Island, long, low and gray also, with tufts of pines instead of palmettoes, and with batteries at intervals along its whole sea front, Fort Wagner standing near its northern end. Sullivan's Island, the scene of fierce conflict during the Revolution, and later, during the Rebellion, is to-day the Long Branch or Coney Island of South Carolina, containing many beautiful cottages and fine drives, and furnishing good sea bathing. The village occupies the point extending into the harbor.

As one approaches Charleston from the sea, the name which has been applied to it, of the "American Venice," seems not inappropriate. The shores are low, and the city seems to rise out of the water. It is built something after the manner of New York, on a long and narrow peninsula, formed by the Cooper and Ashley rivers, which unite in front of the city. It has, like New York, its Battery, occupying the extreme point of the peninsula, its outlook commanding the entire harbor, bristling with fortifications, so harmless in time of peace, so terrible in war. The Battery contains plots of thin clover, neatly fenced and shelled promenades, a long, solid stone quay, which forms the finest sea-walk in the United States, and has a background of the finest residences in the city, three storied, and faced with verandahs. The dwelling-houses throughout the city are mostly of brick or wood, and have large open grounds around them, ornamented with trees, shrubbery, vines and flowers. The city is laid out with tolerable regularity, the streets generally crossing each other at right angles. King street, running north and south, is the fashionable promenade, containing the leading retail stores. Meeting street, nearly parallel with King, contains the jobbing and wholesale stores. Broad street, the banks, brokers' and insurance offices. Meeting street, below Broad, Rutledge street, and the west end of Wentworth street, contain fine private residences.

The City Hall, an imposing building, standing in an open square, the Court House, the Police Headquarters, and the venerable St. Michael's Church , all stand at the intersection of Broad and Meeting streets. St. Michael's was built in 1752, after designs by a pupil of Sir Christopher Wren. The view from the belfry is very fine, embracing the far stretch of sea and shore, the shipping, fortresses of the harbor, and near at hand buildings as ancient as the church itself. It is the church of the poem--a favorite with elocutionists--"How he saved St. Michael." Says the poem, in one of its stanzas, its spire rose

"High over the lesser steeples, tipped with a golden ball That hung like a radiant planet caught in its earthward fall, First glimpse of home to the sailor who made the harbor round, And last slow fading vision, dear, to the outward bound."

Next in interest among the churches of Charleston is St. Philip's Episcopal Church, in Church street, near Queen. The building itself is not so venerable as St. Michael's, though its church establishment is older. The view from the steeple is fine; but its chief interest centres in the churchyard, where lie some of South Carolina's most illustrious dead. In one portion of the churchyard is the tomb of John C. Calhoun, consisting of a plain granite slab, supported by brick walls, and bearing the simple inscription "Calhoun." The ruins of St. Finbar's Cathedral stand at the corner of Broad and Friend streets. The building, which was one of the costliest edifices of Charleston, was destroyed by the great fire of 1861, and the walls, turrets and niches still standing are exceedingly picturesque. Other handsome church edifices abound. The old Huguenot Church, at the corner of Church and Queen streets has its walls lined with quaint and elegant mural entablatures.

The Post Office, at the foot of Broad street, is a venerable structure, dating back to the colonial period, the original material for its construction having being brought from England in 1761. It received considerable damage during the war, but has since been renovated.

The new United States Custom House, which, when completed, will be the finest edifice in the city, is of white marble, in very elegant Corinthian style, and is situated south of the market wharf, on Cooper River.

The old Orphan House of Charleston is one of the most famous institutions in the country. It stands in spacious grounds between Calhoun and Vanderbuist streets, and a statue of William Pitt, erected during the Revolution, stands in the centre of the grounds. John Charles Fremont, the conqueror of California, and once a candidate for the Presidency, and C.C. Memminger, Secretary of the Treasury of the Confederate States, were both educated here. The Charleston Library, at the corner of Broad and Church streets, founded in 1748, and the College of Charleston, located in the square bounded by George, Green, College and St. Philip streets, and founded in 1788, are both spacious and commodious buildings.

One of the most characteristic sights of Charleston is to be seen between six and nine o'clock in the morning, in and about market Hall, in Meeting street, near the Bay. The Hall is a fine building in temple form, with a lofty portico in front, and a row of long, low sheds in the rear.

There is nothing picturesque in the country around about Charleston. On the contrary, it is low, flat and uninteresting. Looking across the Ashley River, which is more than a quarter of a mile wide here, there is on the opposite side a long, low line of nearly dead level, with occasional sparse pine forests, interspersed with fields of open sand. There are no palmettoes, but here and there are gigantic oaks, hung with pendants of gray Spanish moss, and occasional green spikes of the Spanish bayonet. The view across the Cooper is very similar. Large extents of country in the neighborhood of Charleston, especially that lying along the streams, and stretching for many miles inland, are low and swampy. The region is sparsely settled, and furnishes no thriving agricultural or manufacturing population, which, seeking a market or a port for its productions, and wanting supplies in return, helps to build up the city. Several railways connecting with the North, West and South centre here; and she is also connected, by means of steamship lines, with the principal Atlantic seaports and some European ones. She is also the centre of a great lumber region, and annually exports many million feet of lumber.

There are few points of interest about the city. Besides Sullivan's Island, Mount Pleasant, on the northern shore of the harbor, so named, probably, because the land is sufficiently high to escape being a swamp, is a favorite picnic resort. The antiquarian will find interest in the old Church of St. James, about fifteen miles from Charleston, on Goose Creek. It is secluded in the very heart of the pine forest, entirely isolated from habitations, and is approached by a road scarcely more than a bridle-path. The church was built in 1711, and the royal arms of England, which are emblazoned over the pulpit, saved it from destruction during the Revolutionary War. On the walls and altars are tablets in memory of the early members of the organization, one dated 1711, and another 1717. The pews are square and high, the pulpit or reading desk exceedingly small, and the floor is of stone. On the other side of the road, a short distance from this church, is a farm known as The Oaks, approached by a magnificent avenue, a quarter of a mile in length, of those trees, believed to be nearly two hundred years old. They are exceedingly large, and form a continuous archway over the road, their branches festooned with long fringes of gray moss, which soften and conceal the ravages of age.

Magnolia Cemetery lies just outside the city, on its northern boundary. It is beautified by live oaks and magnolias, and contains, among other fine monuments, those of Colonel William Washington, of Revolutionary fame, Hugh Legar? and Dr. Gilmore Simms, the novelist. The roads leading out of the city by the Cooper and Ashley rivers afford attractive drives. What the scenery lacks in grandeur and picturesqueness is made up in beauty by the abundance of lovely foliage, composed of pines, oaks, magnolias, myrtles and jasmines, exhibiting a tropical luxuriance.

On the twenty-seventh of April, 1838, Charleston was visited by a fire which proved exceedingly disastrous. Nearly one-half the city was swept by the flames, which raged for twenty-eight hours, and were finally averted only by the blowing up of buildings in their path. There were 1158 buildings destroyed, involving a loss of three millions of dollars. The most shocking feature of the catastrophe was that, in the carelessness of handling the gunpowder in blowing up these buildings, four of the most prominent citizens were killed, and several others injured. The fire of 1861 exceeded this in destructiveness, and to it were added the terrific effects of a four years' besiegement. So that it can be truly said that Charleston has been purified by fire. She is to-day fully recovered from the effects, and as prosperous as her geographical position will permit.

Founding of Cincinnati.--Rapid Increase of Population.-- Character of its Early Settlers.--Pro-slavery Sympathies.-- During the Rebellion.--Description of the City.--Smoke and Soot.--Suburbs.--"Fifth Avenue" of Cincinnati.--Streets, Public Buildings, Private Art Galleries, Hotels, Churches and Educational Institutions.--"Over the Rhine."--Hebrew Population.--Liberal Religious Sentiment.--Commerce and Manufacturing Interests.--Stock Yards and Pork-packing Establishments.--Wine Making.--Covington and Newport Suspension Bridge.--High Water.--Spring Grove Cemetery.

Cincinnati, whether we consider what its past history has been, or whether we regard it as it is to-day, is probably the most matter-of-fact and prosaic of all our western cities. A generation ago it derived its chief importance from the pork-packing business, in which, though it once stood at the head, it is now completely distanced by Chicago. Its extensive factories and foundries give it material wealth, while its geographical situation guarantees its commercial importance. Unlike most of the towns and cities of this western world, no interesting historical associations cling around its site. The Indians seem to have been troublesome and treacherous here, as elsewhere; but the records tell no stories of famous wars, terrible massacres, or hairbreadth escapes. In all the uninteresting accumulation of dry facts and statistics regarding the founding and subsequent growth of the city, there is just one exceptional romance.

In early times three settlements were made along the banks of the Ohio River, on what is now the southern boundary of the State of Ohio. The first was at Columbia, at the mouth of the Little Miami River, in November, 1788, on ten thousand acres, purchased by Major Benjamin Stites, from Judge Symmes. The second settlement was commenced but a month later, on the north bank of the Ohio River, opposite the mouth of the Licking River, Matthias Denman, of New Jersey, being the leading spirit in the new undertaking, he having purchased about eight hundred acres, also from Judge Symmes, for an equivalent of fifteen pence an acre. Judge Symmes himself directed the third settlement, which was founded in February, 1789, and gave it the name of North Bend, from the fact that it was the most northern bend of the Ohio River, below the mouth of the great Kanawha.

A spirit of rivalry existed between these three settlements, which lay but a few miles apart. Each one regarded itself as the future great city of the west. In the beginning, Columbia took the lead; but North Bend presently gained the advantage, as the troops detailed by General Harmer for the protection of the settlers in the Miami Valley landed there, through the influence of Judge Symmes. This detachment soon took its departure for Louisville, and was succeeded by another, under Ensign Luce, who was at liberty to select the spot, for the erection of a substantial block-house, which seemed to him best calculated to afford protection to the Miami settlers. He put up temporary quarters at North Bend, sufficient for the security of his troops, and began to look for a suitable site on which to build the block-house. While he was leisurely pursuing this occupation, he was attracted by a pair of beautiful black eyes, whose owner was apparently not indifferent to his attentions. This woman was the wife of one of the settlers at the Bend, who, when he perceived the condition of affairs, thought best to remove her out of danger, and at once proceeded to take up his residence at Cincinnati. The gallant commander, still ostensibly engaged in locating his block-house, felt immediately impelled to go to Cincinnati, on a tour of inspection. He was forcibly struck by the superior advantages offered by that town, over all other points on the river, for a military station. In spite of remonstrance from the Judge, the troops were, accordingly, removed, and the erection of a block-house commenced at once. The settlers at the Bend, who at that time outnumbered those of the more favored place, finding their protection gone, gave up their land and followed the soldiers, and ere long the town was almost deserted. In the course of the ensuing summer, Major Doughty arrived at Cincinnati, with troops from Fort Harmer, and established Fort Washington, which was made the most important and extensive military station in the northwest territory. North Bend still continued its existence as a town, and was finally honored by becoming the home of General Wm. H. Harrison, ninth President of the United States, and there still rest his mortal remains. Farms now occupy the place where Columbia once stood.

The unsettled condition of the frontier prevented Cincinnati from making a rapid growth in its early years. In 1800, twelve years after the first colonist landed on the shore of the Ohio opposite the Licking River, there were but 750 inhabitants. In 1814 the town was incorporated as a city. In 1820 its inhabitants numbered 9,602, and in 1830, 16,230. About this time the Miami Canal was built, running through the western portion of the State of Ohio, and connecting Cincinnati with Lake Erie at Toledo. This gave an impetus to trade, and during the next ten years the population increased nearly three hundred per cent., numbering in 1840, 46,382 inhabitants. In 1850 it had again more than doubled, amounting to 115,436. In 1860 the number was 161,044; in 1870, 216,239; while according to the United States census returns of 1880 the population in that year was 255,708.

Yankee capital and enterprise, in the course of time, found their way to Cincinnati, to build up its factories and stimulate public improvements. But, on the line between freedom and slavery, its population largely southern by immigration or descent, and by sympathy, Cincinnati up to the time of the war was more a southern than a northern city. Her leading families were connected by marriage with Kentucky, Virginia and Maryland; many of her leading men had immigrated from those States; and her aristocracy scorned the northern element which had helped to build up the city, and repudiated all its tendencies.

When the war began, Cincinnati found itself in an anomalous position. Geographically it was on the side of the north, while to a large extent its social and business relations allied it with the south. Many of the leading families furnished adherents to the southern cause; but the masses of the people, notably the Germans, who had already become an important factor in its population, were stirred by the spirit of patriotism, and casting aside once for all their conservatism, they identified themselves with the cause of the Union. Trade was greatly disturbed. The old profitable relations with the south were broken up for the time being, but Cincinnati did not find herself a loser. Army contractors made fortunes, and the business of supplying gunboats, military stores and provisions to the army gave employment to immense numbers, and stimulated all branches of trade. From this period Cincinnati dates her new life. Heretofore she had stagnated in all but a business sense. With the steady increase of her population came a new element. Southern supineness and Middle State stolidity were aroused and shaken out of themselves, when slavery no longer exerted its baleful influence over the country and the city. Fresh life was infused into her people, and the war marked the dawn of a new era for the city, an era in which public spirit took a prominent place.

Cincinnati is nearly in the centre of the great valley of the Ohio, being only fifty-eight miles nearer Cairo, at its junction with the Mississippi, than to its head waters at Pittsburg. It occupies the half circle formed by an outward curve of the river, which bends continually in one direction or another. The plateau upon which the business part of the city is built is sixty feet above the low-water mark of the river. Back of this is a terrace some fifty feet higher yet, graded to an easy slope, the whole shut in by an amphitheatre of what appears to be hills, though when one mounts to their summits he finds himself on an undulating table-land, four or five hundred feet above the river, which extends backward into the country. The river flows through a wide and deep ravine, which the raging floods have, in the long ages since they began their course, cut for themselves, through an elevated region of country. In the remote west these ravines, chiseled through the solid rocks, are bordered by steep precipices; on the Ohio the yielding soil has been washed away in a gradual slope, leaving the graceful outlines of hills.

The city proper is occupied by stores, offices, public buildings, factories, foundries, and the dwelling houses of the poorer and middle classes, over all which hangs a pall of smoke, caused by the bituminous coal used as fuel in the city. Cleanliness in either person or in dress is almost an impossibility. Hands and faces become grimy, and clean collars and light-hued garments are perceptibly coated with a thin layer of soot. Clothes hung out in the weekly wash acquire a permanent yellow hue which no bleaching can remove. The smoke of hundreds of factories, locomotives and steamboats arises and unites to form this dismal pall, which obscures the sunlight, and gives a sickly cast to the moonbeams.

But beyond the city, on the magnificent amphitheatre of hills which encircle it, are half a dozen beautiful suburbs, where the homes of Cincinnati's merchant princes and millionaires are found, as elegant as wealth combined with art can make them, surrounded by enchanting scenery, and commanding extensive views over the city and surrounding country. Cincinnati has no Fifth Avenue like New York, but it has its Mount Auburn, its Walnut Hills, its Price's Hill, its Clifton and its Avondale, which are as much superior to Fifth Avenue as the country is superior to the city, and as space is preferable to narrowness. As far as the eye can reach, on these billowed outlines of hills and valleys, elegant cottages, tasteful villas, and substantial mansions, surrounded by a paradise of grass, gardens, lawns, and tree-shaded roads, are clustered. Each little suburb has its own corporation, and its own municipal government, while even its mayor and aldermen may do daily business in the large city below it.

In the city itself Pearl street is noted for its wholesale trade, and for the uniform elegance of its buildings. Third street, between Main and Vine, contains the banking, brokering, and insurance offices. Fourth street is the fashionable promenade and business street. Freeman street, in the neighborhood of Lincoln Park, is also a favorite promenade. Both the East and West Ends contain many fine residences. Along Front street, at the foot of Main, is the public landing, an open space one thousand feet long and four hundred and twenty-five feet wide. The city has a frontage of ten miles on the river, and extends back three miles.

The United States Government building, occupying the square bounded by Main and Walnut, and Fifth and Sixth streets, and accommodating the Custom House, Post Office, and United States Courts; the County Court House, in Main street, near Canal street; the City buildings occupying an entire square on Plum street, between Eighth and Ninth; the Chamber of Commerce, on Fourth street between Main and Walnut; and the Masonic Temple, at the corner of Third and Walnut streets, are among the most imposing buildings of the city. The Exposition buildings, in Elm street, fronting Washington Park, cover three and one-half acres of ground, and have seven acres of space for exhibiting. The Exhibition opens annually, during the first week in September, and closes the first week in October. The Springer Music Hall will seat 5,000 persons, and contains one of the largest organs in the world, having more pipes, but fewer speaking stops, than the famous Boston organ. Pike's Opera House, in Fourth street, between Vine and Walnut, is a very handsome building. Cincinnati is noted for its appreciation and encouragement of fine music. The Emery Arcade, said to be the largest in America, extends from Vine to Race street, between Fourth and Fifth. The roof is of glass, and in it are shops of various kinds, and the Hotel Emery.

The late Henry Probasco, on Clifton Heights, and Joseph Longworth, on Walnut Hills, each had very fine private art galleries, to which visitors were courteously admitted, and the city itself occupies a high standard in art matters. The Tyler-Davidson fountain, in Fifth street, between Vine and Walnut, the gift of Mr. Probasco, exhibits a series of basins, one above another, the shaft ornamented by figures, and the whole surmounted by a gigantic female figure, from whose outstretched hands the water rains down in fine spray. The fountain was cast in Munich, and cost nearly 0,000.

The Burnet House has been, for more than a quarter of a century, the principal hotel in Cincinnati. The Grand Hotel is newer and more elegant. The Gibson House is large and centrally located. There are various opera houses, theatres, variety and concert halls, a gymnasium, a Floating Bath, and Zo?logical Gardens, with a collection of birds and animals, among the best in the country.

St. Peter's Cathedral , in Plum street, between Seventh and Eighth, is the finest religious edifice in the city. Its altar of Carrara marble was carved in Genoa, and its altar-piece, "St. Peter Delivered," by Murillo, a work of art of world-wide reputation. Many of the Protestant churches are elegant, and some of them actually magnificent. The Hebrew Synagogue on Plum street, opposite the Cathedral, and the Hebrew Temple, at the corner of Eighth and Mound streets, both handsome edifices, one in Moorish and the other in Gothic style, have each of them brilliant interiors.

Among the educational institutions of Cincinnati are the University of Cincinnati, having in connection with it a School of Design and a Law School, St. Xavier's College ; Wesleyan Female College; Seminary of Mount St. Mary's, a famous Roman Catholic College; Lane Theological Seminary, of which Dr. Lyman Beecher was once president, and where Henry Ward Beecher once studied theology for three years; several medical colleges, and scientific, classical and mechanical institutes.

A number of parks surround the city, furnishing fine pleasure grounds, and containing magnificent views of the river and its shores.

More than a third of the residents of Cincinnati are of German birth or descent. Besides being scattered all through the city, they also occupy a quarter exclusively their own, on the north of the Miami Canal, which they have named "the Rhine." "Over the Rhine," one seems to have left America entirely, and to have entered, as by magic, the Fatherland. The German tongue is the only one spoken, and all signs and placards are in German. There are German schools, churches and places of amusement. The beer gardens will especially recall Germany to the mind of the tourist. The Grand Arbeiter and Turner Halls are distinctive features of this quarter of the city, and specially worthy of a visit.

The Jews also constitute a proportion of the inhabitants, respectable both as to numbers and character; and, what is worthy of remark, there is an unwonted harmony between Christians and Hebrews, so that an exchange of pulpits between them has been among the actual facts of the past. Dr. Max Lilienthal, one of the most eloquent and learned rabbis of the country, presides over one of the Jewish congregations, and has preached to Christian audiences; and Mr. Mayo, the Unitarian clergyman, has spoken by invitation in the synagogues. The Jews of the city are noted for their intelligence, public spirit and liberality, and are represented in the municipal government, and on the boards of public and charitable institutions. Quite as worthy of note is the fact that the Young Men's Christian Association of Cincinnati is not influenced by that spirit of narrow bigotry which in certain other cities of the Union excludes Unitarians from fellowship.

The venerable Archbishop Purcell, who for half a century had been at the head of the Roman Catholic Church in this diocese, was a man of genial manners, sincerely beloved by all. But the closing days of his life were sadly clouded by a gigantic financial failure, amounting to several millions of dollars, with which he was connected. As heavily as the blow has fallen upon many of his flock, the only blame they impute to the dead prelate is that of most faulty judgment and general incapacity in financial affairs. The most singular part of it all was that the difficulties should have remained so long undiscovered, until such an immense amount of property was involved.

Cincinnati's commerce is very extended, and so are her manufacturing interests. Steamboats from all points on the Mississippi and the Ohio lay up at her levee, which extends five or six miles around the bank of the river in front of the city. The traveler may take his ticket for St. Paul, New Orleans, Pittsburg, high up the Red River, or any intervening point. The staple article of trade is pork, though she exports wine, flour, iron, machinery, whisky, paper and books. In addition to the water ways, a large number of railways, connecting the city with every section of the country, centres here.

The stock yards of Cincinnati are on an extended scale, though not equaling those of Chicago. The Union Railroad's Stock Yards, comprising fifty acres on Spring Grove avenue, have accommodations for 25,000 hogs, 10,000 sheep, and 5,000 cattle. In the pork packing establishments, thousands of hogs from the farms of Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky, are slaughtered daily. In a single establishment fifty men will slaughter and dispose of 1,500 hogs a day. Each man has his own special line of work, the labor being divided among pen-men, knockers-down, stickers, scalders, bristle-snatchers, scrapers, shavers, hangers or "gamble-men," gutters, hose-boys, slide-boys, splitters, cutters with their attendants, weighers, cleavers, knife-men, ham-trimmers, shoulder-trimmers, packers, salters, weighers and branders, lard-men, bookkeepers, porters and laborers, of whom fifty will unitedly dispose of a hog once in every twenty seconds. The old saying is that it takes nine tailors to make a man, but it takes fifty men, belonging to all the professions named above, to make one complete butcher. The work is accomplished so rapidly that the creature has no time to realize what has happened to him, before the different portions of his dissected body are slipping down wooden pipes, each to its appropriate apartment below, to be finally disposed of.

Nowhere east of the Rocky Mountains are grapes cultivated to such an extent, and such quantities of wine manufactured, as on the southern slopes of the hills which hem in the city of Cincinnati. This business is mostly engaged in by Germans, who make excellent wine, which has acquired a world-wide celebrity. But the grape-rot, which has especially affected the Catawbas, from which the best wine is produced, has of late years rather checked the industry. Some of the wine cellars of Cincinnati are famous, not only for the quantity of native wine which they contain, but for its quality as well.

Looking across the river, which at low water is, perhaps, a third of a mile wide, to the Kentucky side, one sees, on the right bank of the Licking River, the city of Covington, a mass of black factories and tall chimneys, from which dense smoke is always ascending, and spreading out over the valley. On the left or opposite bank of the Licking is Newport, the two towns connected by a suspension bridge. Covington is also connected with Cincinnati by a suspension bridge, 1,057 feet long from tower to tower, its entire length 2,252 feet, and elevated by two iron cables above the river, at low water, one hundred feet. Its weight is 600 tons, but it is estimated that it will sustain a weight of 16,000 tons, and is one of the finest structures of its kind in the world. This bridge was nine years in construction, and cost nearly two millions of dollars. There are also two pier railroad bridges across the Ohio at Cincinnati.

Along the summit of the steep levee, close to the line of stores, there is a row of massive posts, three feet thick and twenty feet high, and forty or fifty feet above the usual low water mark. The stranger will be puzzled to imagine their use. But let him visit the city during the spring freshet, and he will speedily discover their purpose. The swelling of the river at that period brings the steamboats face to face with the warehouses on the levee, and they are secured to these huge posts by means of strong cables, to prevent them being swept down the stream by the mighty rush of waters. The usual difference between the high and low water mark of the Ohio River at Cincinnati is about forty feet, though a flood has been known to mark a much higher figure than that. When this occurs, which it does once or twice in a generation, the overflowing water carries desolation to all the lower parts of the city. The ground floors of houses are submerged, cellars filled, merchandise damaged or destroyed. People betake themselves to the upper stories, and make their way about the streets in boats.

The latest and most disastrous flood on record was that of 1883, when, on February fifteenth, the river indicated sixty-six feet and four inches above low water mark. Furious rain storms throughout the Ohio Valley had swollen all the streams to an unprecedented height, and caused terrible disaster to all the towns and cities on the shores of the Ohio River. For seven miles along the water front of Cincinnati the water overflowed valuable property, reaching from two to eight blocks into the city, so that the great suspension bridge, entrance to which is from the top of the decline, could not be reached except in boats. A thousand firms were washed out. In Mill Creek Valley are the large manufacturing establishments, which employ over thirty thousand men, women, and children, and these were all cut off by water. Twelve wards in the city, and seven townships in the country, were more or less affected by the flood. The entire population of the flooded city districts is nearly 130,000, and one quarter of these, exclusive of business interests, were sufferers by the flood, their houses being either under water or totally destroyed. The waterworks were stopped, and the city was left in darkness by the submergence of the gasworks.

On Tuesday, February thirteenth, although the flood had not yet reached its height, the freight depot of the Cincinnati Southern Railroad was undermined by the bursting of a culvert under it, and fell into the surrounding water, carrying with it, to certain death, several people. More than twenty railroad tracks were submerged, some of them to a depth of twelve feet, so that nearly all communication was cut off. Policemen patrolled the streets in boats. The churches were thrown open to receive the homeless, and nearly every organization in the city, from the Chamber of Commerce to the ladies' sewing societies, entered upon the work of relieving the sufferers. Contributions poured in most liberally from abroad, the Free Masons of Cleveland alone shipping twelve large boats, with a generous supply of stores. Before relief could come to them, many persons suffered severely, from both cold and hunger. They were rescued from their flooded homes by the aid of skiffs, some of them with barely enough clothing to conceal their nakedness.

It is estimated that eight square miles of Cincinnati were under water, five of which were in the Mill Creek Valley. Provisions became scarce, and commanded high prices. Newport, on the Kentucky shore, was in even a more deplorable condition than Cincinnati. Supplies became entirely exhausted, and on the night of the fourteenth, fifteen thousand people there were without fuel or provisions.

On the sixteenth of February the waters had begun to subside, and gradually regained their normal level, making more apparent, as the flood decreased, the ruin and desolation which had attended it. A vast deposit of mud was left upon the streets, many premises had been undermined by the sucking currents, malaria haunted the wet cellars, the destruction of merchandise was found to be very heavy indeed, while thousands of men were compelled to remain out of employment until the factories and mills could be put in working condition. The great flood of 1883 will long be remembered by the citizens of Cincinnati.

The pride of Cincinnati is Spring Grove Cemetery, five miles northwest of the city, which is one of the most beautiful in the West. It is in the valley of Mill Creek, and is approached by a handsome avenue, one hundred feet wide. It contains six hundred acres, well wooded, and so laid out as to present the appearance of a park. The boundaries of the lots are indicated by sunken stone posts at each corner, there being neither railing, fence, nor hedge within the cemetery, to define these lots. The graves are leveled off, even with the ground, and the monuments are remarkable, for their variety and good taste. The Dexter mausoleum, which represents a Gothic chapel, will attract special attention; while one of the principal objects in the cemetery is the bronze statue of a soldier, cast in Munich, and erected in 1864, to the memory of the Ohio volunteer soldiers who died during the War.

Cincinnati stands in the front rank of the manufacturing cities of America, and the secret of her financial success is that she has made what the people of Ohio and other States needed and were sure to buy. Receiving their products in return, and turning these to account, her merchants have made a double profit. As long as the Ohio River sweeps by the city's front, and as long as the smoke of her factories and her foundries ascends to heaven and obscures the fair face thereof, and corn, transformed into pork, is sent away in such quantities to the Eastern cities and to Europe; so long as the cotton of the South, the hay of the blue grass region, and the grain of the North and West, find a market on her shores, her prosperity is secure; and the Queen City of the West, as she proudly styles herself, will go on increasing in population and in prosperity.

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