hold any five-story block of buildings in the city. This room is finely decorated. From the gallery they could see hundreds of men standing in and around the "pits," shouting and yelling, pushing and crowding, throwing up their arms and pointing with the index finger, rushing about as if half crazy. Some of them wore their hats, some were in their shirt-sleeves, all seemed busy and anxious. Telegraph and messenger boys crossed and recrossed the hall, ran from one pit to the other, or to the men who sat at the tables with little cups of grain before them.

"Are these men half crazy?" inquired Florence.

"They are only 'bears and bulls,'" replied George. "What in the world are they doing?"

"They are buying and selling grain; they are transacting business up to millions of dollars with a lead pencil and a little piece of paper. Notice that most of the men are young men not over thirty years of age."

One day Mr. Cartmell and the boys went to the Union Stock-Yards, riding southward on the cable cars as far as Thirty-fifth Street and then transferring to a cross line and going a short distance to the west. The cable cars are propelled by a steel wire cable, which moves rapidly under the street and is grasped by iron clasps which pass down from the car, and which are easily managed by the driver. These cars run nine miles an hour in the crowded parts of the city and thirteen miles farther out. They run in trains of two or three cars, and are far inferior, the Cartmell boys thought, in comfort and elegance to the electric cars of Boston.

The yards are some five miles from the Palmer House. When this place was first selected for the business, it seemed

to be so far away; but now the yards are almost in the centre of the city, so great has been the growth of this western metropolis.

Leaving the cars, the boys and their father walked along Packers Avenue, leading into Packing Town. Pens for cattle were to be seen on each side; some of them were open, others were covered. The cattle were out doors, and the sheep and calves were under cover. The cattlepens were of different sizes, holding from two cows to three hundred head. Each pen is supplied with watering and feeding troughs.

"There are," said Mr. Cartmell, over two hundred acres of these yards, and almost as much ground taken up with the railroad tracks and car sidings. There are twenty-five miles of these watering troughs, fifty miles of feeding troughs, and seventy-five miles of water and drainage pipes."

"Where do they get water for the cattle to drink?" George asked.

"Largely from artesian wells, I believe."

As they were passing along toward the slaughter and packing establishment of Armour and Company, a drove of cattle came rushing past. Men on horseback with small whips directed the herd through the different streets to pens in other parts of the yards. Soon after they saw a large number passing through viaducts, or an elevated passageway over the pens of the cattle.

"Where do you suppose those cattle are going, Father?" Fred inquired.

66 'I presume to the building where they are to be killed." Mr. Cartmell now engaged a guide to show them as quickly as possible the sights of the cattle-yards.

He took them first to the great slaughter-houses and showed them the details of the business from first to last. All the work here is done by experts, each one having a single division of labor to do. "There is not," he said, "a single part of the creature which is not used for some purpose, and which does not have a money value."

"Are the blood and hoofs of any value?"

"Certainly. Both are saved, and sold as fast as produced for commercial purposes."

"When do the cattle arrive, Mr. Guide?"

"They come here on the railroads from the West and South, reaching this place each morning between four and eight o'clock. The buying and selling take place mostly in the forenoon. The cattle to be killed remain in the pens till the following day."

"How many cattle are received here each day?" "The average is about ten thousand.”

"What firm does the most business?"

“Probably Armour and Company. They killed last year one and a half million hogs, three fifths of a million cattle, and over three tenths of a million sheep. This firm employs seven thousand men, and uses nearly two thousand refrigerator cars in carrying their products to the eastern markets. Their immense business is shown when I tell you that their buildings in this place cover fifty acres."

Dismissing their guide, the Cartmells entered the restaurant in the Exchange building, and dined with the great cattle-men, butchers, drivers, and packers. These men were not acquainted with all the graces of refined society; more than half of them ate with their hats on, without napkins, and frequently used their knives to carry food to the mouth; but they had good appetites, strong constitutions, and apparently owed no man a dollar.

On the way back to the city George reminded Fred of the day when they saw in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, the Boston meat-train of refrigerator cars which came from these Chicago stock-yards.

A REVIEW.

1. Where did the Cartmells go when they sailed "

Shore"?

2. Describe a lighthouse.

3. Tell about the lantern.

4. Where is Monhegan Light?

5. What is a whistling buoy?
6. What is a light-ship?

7. Describe a visit to Chicago.

Along the

THE same day in which Mr. Cartmell and the boys went to the Stock-Yards, Mrs. Cartmell, Miss Gray, and the girls took a trip to Pullman, the celebrated town where the Pullman cars are made.

In the evening the boys told of what they had seen, and then Fred asked,

"Mother, what did you see in Pullman?"

"Pullman is an interesting suburb, not matched, it is said, anywhere the world over. It is a village of about ten thousand inhabitants, built exclusively by the Pullmans for their laborers, and having all the distinctive features of a long-established and flourishing town. Cars of every description are made here, the shops having a capacity for turning out each week three sleepers, ten passengers cars, two hundred and forty freight cars, and several street cars,