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Show THE GARDEN CITY <br><br> While in this flourishing city I will make an effort to write you a few lines. Sights are so numerous and so advanced in sciences, that it fills the eyes of a country chap with astonishment. It is said that business is quiet here now, owing to the navigation on the lake not having been started yet, but to one not used to the immense traffic of this city it seems stupendous. Vehicles of every description are on the move constantly, bringing the manufacturers from the numerous factories to supply the dealers in the city, and conveying goods to the many railroads to be distributed over the country. The city is thickly spotted with manufactories of all kinds, filling the air with smoke from their numerous smoke pipes and chimneys. Well authenticated statistics show the number of manufacturing establishments to be eighteen hundred, employing fifty-five thousand men, with a capital of $77,000,000, and making products to the value of $150,000,000 a year. These embrace almost every conceivable variety of productions. These statistics are about two year's old and at this time there must be a large increase. Since I came here a number of two and three story houses have been built on lots that were empty when I arrived and no sign of intention to build upon them. A large brick house is erected here in a few days. This coming season is looked forward to by all to be an unusually lively one. A number of giant structures are already begun. One of them is to be a sugar refining works. The capital to be employed is $3,000,000. These works are to make sugar from corn. The north Chicago rolling mills are also intending to make an addition to their already mammoth concern, they are going to increase the capital stock $3,000,000 more. This concern does an immense amount of work. The works occupy a considerable space of ground and look like a small city. The manufacture of steel rails is well worth one's time to see. Large quantities of metal smelted in mammoth furnaces, then run into square moulds, making an iron block about one foot square by about four feet long. When the mass of iron has cooled sufficiently to hold itself together the moulds are lifted off, and the blocks are raised by cranes and laid on a small truck and removed by a locomotive to the rolling mills. Here they are heated and reheated, and put through a number of rollers until finally they come out complete rails. The machines they pass through are numerous, of which I will speak of but one, a circle saw that cuts the steel rails off when quite cold. The rail is fed up to the saw which soon completes its work, cutting the largest steel rail off in about a half minute, throwing off a stream of sparks that illuminates the whole building. The belt driving this saw runs at five miles per minute. The average of this concern is six hundred and fifty rails, consuming two hundred tons of iron in four and twenty hours. The men employed, at the shops only, are from two hundred and fifty to three hundred. Labor of all kinds is in good demand in this city and every one busy. Six o'clock furnished an interesting sight to see the work hands of all kinds going home from their labor. <br><br> In general, times are good, people lively and pleasant. A good deal of interest is taken in the "Davis Polygamy Case," and letters are sent to him daily from ladies claiming to be his wives. Not wishing to write a [unreadable line] any more, I will close. Yours truly, Gus. |
