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Show EDITORIAL CORRESPONDENCE. St. Louis, Mo., June 24th. ' It has been raining about an inch a minute all i the morning. I have seen nothing like it since ' 18C1 when the Carson river was in three days con-! con-! vei ted into a Niagara, carried my earthly pos-; pos-; sessions down to the pink, drowned six of my pco- pjo and left me a total wreck. All day yesterday : there were premonitions of the storm. The skies were overclouded, the air was murky and the flies i made life a burden to the cab horses standing out-i out-i side the hotel. At nine last night a great thunder ! storm came up the river and passed over the city. All its thunder drums were rolling and the houses on land and the steamers on the river shone like i spectral houses and boats under the flashing of ' the lightning, and ihls morning it is just raining ! and raining. I This city is clearing away the debris of great flood. The losses here were compar .avtly light, but up country and across the river they were appalling. The railroads are out millions, but the most pitiable sight is where the farms of the people are, or have been inundated. A good ; many boys that hoped to go away to school this coming winter, will not go; some promised pianos for the girls will not be bought. The arid belt has its advantages. Judging by the preparations, the structures for the Exposition next year will exceed in size and ! beauty both those of Buffalo and Chicago. The work is being rushed as fast as 8,000 skilled and unskilled workers can accomplish the task. The grounds are almost double in area those of Chicago Chi-cago and the approaches from the city are vastly finer. Forest Park has 1,400 acres of land, and half of It is given over to the exposition. The park just now is most lovely. Convenient to it "new St. Loujs" is very splendid. By "New St. Louis" I mean those portions of the city that have been built up with costly structures on both sides of the street to roadways twenty feet wide next the curb on either side and in the center a four-rod four-rod wide park. These extend in places the length of four or five blocks; only costly houses are permitted per-mitted and each house contributes to- keep the m streets clean and the parks lovely. South Temple street in Salt Lake should be transformed that same way. St. Louis has more park room than any other city. Yesterday they B were all crowded. The grand stand in the city's B part of Shaw's Gardens was surrounded by hun- dreds of carriages, the occupants listening to the fl fine music. B Speaking of the exposition, I do not believe B that more than one in- ten of the Inhabitants of fl this city realize its full significance. That Louis-B Louis-B iana Purchase was the first great step towards Bj founding the empire which is now overshadow-fl overshadow-fl ing all other empires. The mighty area slept al- most in silence for fifty years and then the work- ing of the miracle began. The first inspiration was the finding of gold in General Sutton's old mill race. Those shining sands electrified the world and were a notice to mankind that the United States was about to take its rightful-, place among the nations of the earth. When ten years later, the finding of gold was supplemented by the find- jng of silver, then the desert began to smile and "the tide of empire" increased its speod on its ''western way," Now, there lq no mora frpntiGi'j, now the whole continent to the Pacific is ringing with the songs and the clamdrs of multitudinous industries and the lamps in the temples of peace light all the long space between the seas. It is to celebrate the mighty achievements that the exposition ex-position is to be held. History has nothing to compare with it. Both steam and labor saving machines came to tiansfer the heavier burdens from the arms of men to the arms of steel and through them, a mortal life measured by what it can achieve, is longer in fact that was Methuselah's. Methus-elah's. Last week in St. Louis was a banner week for our Gorman fellow citizens. The great National Sangerfest was held here and some of the figures cf it are stupendous. An orchestra of two hundred hun-dred instruments, 5,000 singers, a soprano that rang, out over chorus and orchestra, as does the lark's song over all the murmurs of the forest when at morn she mounts to hail the sun, and a listening audience of 20,000. It was all high class music, too. The Germans are not boastful, but they could not conceal their exultation over the great event. Now there are branch Sangerfests in every beer saloon in town, and, while I write, from one across the street, comes the deep Fatherland Father-land rerrain from a jubilant baritone and heavy bass both muffled and softened by beer. Speaking Speak-ing cf beer, a dozen four-horse wagons, horses and vehicles decorated by flags and streamers and accompanibd by a band went off yesterday to a picnic, each wagon bearing the announcement of the superior beer it represented. The newspapers here are fighting the granting of a mighty Terminal Franchise, which the railroads rail-roads are seeking to secure. I predict that the reads will win for there are millions in it, and human nature is weak, unless there can be a divine di-vine sustaining force behind it to hold it steady; even like that back of the Fearful Eight in the Fait Lake City Council. St. I ouis is laying one hundred miles of pave-irents pave-irents this year. St. Louis is ten times 'greater than Salt Lake City. Will Salt Lake lay ten miles of pavement? It is pretty warm here, but not uncomfortable, and it is said this has been the coolest June for many years. The heat, however, is the old fashioned fash-ioned sticker, down East heat which gets hold of one and clings to him like a brother. The rich of the city are getting ready to pull out early next menth. There are twelve weeks after the 10th of July in St. Louis when all who can, seek the lakes, the mountains or the sea-shore. The heat is not only prostrating, but the honest onesxn-iess onesxn-iess tiiat there is something about it which takes away the energies of both body and brain, and makes it difficult to either work or think. But this is a smashing great city, and the work going on here will kindle any man's admiration. ad-miration. 'Tis essentially a working city and ere where many men seem to care less for personal per-sonal display than in any city I know of. C. C. G. |