Chapter 1—A Whole Town in Festivity
A stranger arriving in the chief city of Illinois on the morning of the 3rd of April, 1897, would have had good reason for considering himself the most fortunate of travellers. His note-book that day would have had entries enough to yield copy for many sensational articles. And assuredly if he had prolonged his stay in Chicago by a few weeks before and a few months after, he would have taken a share in the emotions, palpitations, and alternations of hope and despair, of the feverishness and bewilderment even, of this great city which for the time was beside itself.
Since eight o’clock an ever-increasing crowd had been streaming towards the twenty-second quarter. This is one of the wealthiest, and is comprised between North Avenue and Division Street on
