Studies in The South and West, With Comments on Canada

It is necessary to suggest, however, that the value of the springs to invalids and to all visitors would be greatly enhanced by such regulations as those that govern Carlsbad and Marienbad in Bohemia. The success of those great “cures” depends largely upon the regimen enforced there, the impossibility of indulging in an improper diet, and the prevailing regularity of habits as to diet, sleep, and exercise. There is need at Hot Springs for more hotel accommodation of the sort that will make comfortable invalids accustomed to luxury at home, and at least one new and very large hotel is promised soon to supply this demand; but what Hot Springs needs is the comforts of life, and not means of indulgence at table or otherwise. Perhaps it is impossible for the American public, even the sick part of it, to submit itself to discipline, but we never will have the full benefit of our many curative springs until it consents to do so. Patients, no doubt, try to follow the varying regimen imposed by different doctors, but it is difficult to do so amid all the temptations of a go-as-you-please bath-place. A general regimen of diet applicable to all visitors is the only safe rule. Under such enlightened rules as prevail at Marienbad, and with the opportunity for mild entertainment in pretty shops, agreeable walks and drives, with music and the hundred devices to make the time pass pleasantly, Hot Springs would become one of the most important sanitary resorts in the world. It is now in a very crude state; but it has the water, the climate, the hills and woods; good saddle-horses are to be had, and it is an interesting country to ride over; those who frequent the place are attached to it; and time and taste and money will, no doubt, transform it into a place of beauty.

Arkansas surprised the world by the exhibition it made of itself at New Orleans, not only for its natural resources, but for the range and variety of its productions. That it is second to no other State in its adaptability to cotton-raising was known; that it had magnificent forests and large coal-fields and valuable minerals in its mountains was known; but that it raised fruit superior to any other in the South-west, and quite equal to any in the North, was a revelation. The mountainous part of the State, where some of the hills rise to the altitude of 2500 feet, gives as good apples, pears, and peaches as are raised in any portion of the Union; indeed, this fruit has taken the first prize in exhibitions from Massachusetts to Texas. It is as remarkable for flavor and firmness as it is for size and beauty. This region is also a good vineyard country. The State boasts more miles of navigable waters than any other, it has variety of soil and of surface to fit it for every crop in the temperate latitudes, and it has a very good climate. The range of northern mountains protects it from “northers,” and its elevated portions have cold enough for a tonie. Of course the low and swampy lands are subject to malaria. The State has just begun to appreciate itself, and has organized efforts to promote immigration. It has employed a competent State geologist, who is doing excellent service. The United States has still a large quantity of valuable land in the State open to settlement under the homestead and preemption laws. The State itself has over 2,000,000 acres of land, forfeited and granted to it in various ways; of this, the land forfeited for taxes will be given to actual settlers in tracts of 160 acres to each person, and the rest can be purchased at a low price. I cannot go into all the details, but the reader may be assured that the immigration committee make an exceedingly good showing for settlers who wish to engage in farming, fruit-raising, mining, or lumbering. The Constitution of the State is very democratic, the statute laws are stringent in morality, the limitations upon town and city indebtedness are severe, the rate of taxation is very low, and the State debt is small. The State, in short, is in a good condition for a vigorous development of its resources.

There is a popular notion that Arkansas is a “bowie-knife” State, a lawless and an ignorant State. I shared this before I went there. I cannot disprove the ignorance of the country districts. As I said, more money is needed to make the public-school system effective. But in its general aspect the State is as orderly and moral as any. The laws against carrying concealed weapons are strict, and are enforced.. It is a fairly temperate State. Under the high license and local option laws, prohibition prevails in two-thirds of the State, and the popular vote is strictly enforced. In forty-eight of the seventy-five counties no license is granted, in other counties only a single town votes license, and in many of the remaining counties many towns refuse it. In five counties only is liquor perfectly free. A special law prohibits liquor-selling within five miles of a college; within three miles of a church or school, a majority of the adult inhabitants can prohibit it. With regard to liquor-selling, woman suffrage practically exists. The law says that on petition of a majority of the adult population in any district the county judge must refuse license. The women, therefore, without going into politics, sign the petitions and create prohibition.

The street-cars and railways make no discrimination as to color of passengers. Everywhere I went I noticed that the intercourse between the two races was friendly. There is much good land on the railway between Little Rock and Arkansas City, heavily timbered, especially with the clean-boled, stately gum-trees. At Pine Bluff, which has a population of 5000, there is a good colored Normal School, and the town has many prosperous negroes, who support a racetrack of their own, and keep up a county fair. I was told that the most enterprising man in the place, the largest street-railway owner, is black as a coal. Farther down the road the country is not so good, the houses are mostly poor shanties, and the population, largely colored, appears to be of a shiftless character. Arkansas City itself, low-lying on the Mississippi, has a bad reputation.

Little Rock, already a railway centre of importance, is prosperous and rapidly improving. It has the settled, temperate, orderly society of an Eastern town, but democratic in its habits, and with a cordial hospitality which is more provincial than fashionable. I heard there a good chamber concert of stringed instruments, one of a series which had been kept up by subscription all winter, and would continue the coming winter. The performers were young Bohemians. The gentleman at whose pleasant, old-fashioned house I was entertained, a leading lawyer and jurist in the South-west, was a good linguist, had travelled in most parts of the civilized globe, had on his table the current literature of France, England, Germany, and America, a daily Paris newspaper, one New York journal (to give its name might impugn his good taste in the judgment of every other New York journal), and a very large and well-selected library, two-thirds of which was French, and nearly half of the remainder German. This was one of the many things I found in Arkansas which I did not expect to find.

XIV.—ST. LOUIS AND KANSAS CITY

St. Louis is eighty years old. It was incorporated as a town in 1808, thirteen years before the admission of Missouri into the Union as a State. In 1764 a company of thirty Frenchmen made a settlement on its site and gave it its distinguished name. For nearly half a century, under French and Spanish jurisdiction alternately, it was little more than a trading post, and at the beginning of this century it contained only about a thousand inhabitants. This period, however, gave it a romantic historic background, and as late as 1853, when its population was a hundred thousand, it preserved French characteristics and a French appearance—small brick houses and narrow streets crowded down by the river. To the stranger it was the Planters’ Hotel and a shoal of big steamboats moored along an extensive levee roaring with river traffic. Crowded, ill-paved, dirty streets, a few country houses on elevated sites, a population forced into a certain activity by trade, but hindered in municipal improvement by French conservatism, and touched with the rust of slavery—that was the St. Louis of thirty-five years ago.

Now everything is changed as by some magic touch. The growth of the city has always been solid, unspeculative, conservative in its business methods, with some persistence of the old French influence, only gradually parting from its ancient traditions, preserving always something of the aristocratic flavor of “old families,” accounted “slow” in the impatience of youth. But it has burst its old bounds, and grown with a rapidity that would be marvellous in any other country. The levee is comparatively deserted, although the trade on the lower river is actually very large. The traveller who enters the city from the east passes over the St. Louis Bridge, a magnificent structure and one of the engineering wonders of the modern world, plunges into a tunnel under the business portion of the old city, and emerges into a valley covered with a net-work of railway-tracks, and occupied by apparently interminable lines of passenger coaches and freight cars, out of the confusion of which he makes his way with difficulty to a carriage, impressed at once by the enormous railway traffic of the city. This is the site of the proposed Union Depot, which waits upon the halting action of the Missouri Pacific system. The eastern outlet for all this growing traffic is over the two tracks of the bridge; these are entirely inadequate, and during a portion of the year there is a serious blockade of freight. A second bridge over the Mississippi is already a necessity to the commerce of the city, and is certain to be built within a few years.

St. Louis, since the war, has spread westward over the gentle ridges which parallel the river, and become a city vast in territory and most attractive in appearance. While the business portion has expanded into noble avenues with stately business and public edifices, the residence parts have a beauty, in handsome streets and varied architecture, that is a continual surprise to one who has not seen the city for twenty years. I had set down the length of the city along the river-front as thirteen miles, with a depth of about six miles; but the official statistics are: length of river-front, 19.15 miles; length of western limits, 21.27; extent north and south in an air line, 17; and length east and west on an air line, 6.62. This gives an area of 61.37 square miles, or 39,276 acres. This includes the public parks (containing 2095 acres), and is sufficient room for the population of 450,000, which the city doubtless has in 1888. By the United States census of 1870 the population was reported much larger than it was, the figures having no doubt been manipulated for political purposes. Estimating the natural increase from this false report, the city was led to claim a population far beyond the actual number, and unjustly suffered a little ridicule for a mistake for which it was not responsible. The United States census of 1880 gave it 350,522. During the eight years from 1880 there were erected 18,574 new dwelling-houses, at a cost of over fifty millions of dollars.

The great territorial extension of the city in 1876 was for a time a disadvantage, for it threw upon the city the care of enormous street extensions, made a sporadic movement of population beyond Grand avenue, which left hiatuses in improvement, and created a sort of furor of fashion for getting away from what to me is still the most attractive residence portion of the town, namely, the elevated ridges west of Fourteenth Street, crossed by Lucas Place and adjoining avenues. In this quarter, and east of Grand avenue, are fine high streets, with detached houses and grounds, many of them both elegant and comfortable, and this is the region of the Washington University, some of the finest club-houses, and handsomest churches. The movements of eity populations, however, are not to be accounted for. One of the finest parts of the town, and one of the oldest of the better residence parts, that south of the railways, containing broad, well-planted avenues, and very stately old homes, and the exquisite Lafayette Park, is almost wholly occupied now by Germans, who make up so large a proportion of the population.

One would have predicted at an early day that the sightly bluffs below the eity would be the resort of fashion, and be occupied with fine country houses. But the movement has been almost altogether westward and away from the river. And this rolling, wooded region is most inviting, elevated, open, cheerful. No other eity in the West has fairer suburbs for expansion and adornment, and its noble avenues, dotted with conspicuously fine residences, give promise of great beauty and elegance. In its late architectural development, St. Louis, like Chicago, is just in time to escape a very mediocre and merely imitative period in American building. Beyond Grand avenue the stranger will be shown Vandeventer Place, a semiprivate oblong park, surrounded by many pretty and some notably fine residences. Two of them are by Richardson, and the city has other specimens of his work. I cannot refrain from again speaking of the effect that this original genius has had upon American architecture, especially in the West, when money and enterprise afforded him free scope. It is not too much to say that he created a new era, and the influence of his ideas is seen everywhere in the work of architects who have caught his spirit.

The city has addressed itself to the occupation and adornment of its great territory and the improvement of its most travelled thoroughfares with admirable public spirit. The rolling nature of the ground has been taken advantage of to give it a nearly perfect system of drainage and sewerage. The old pavements of soft limestone, which were dust in dry weather and liquid mud in wet weather, are being replaced by granite in the business parts and asphalt and wood blocks (laid on a concrete base) in the residence portions. Up to the beginning of 1888 this new pavement had cost nearly three and a half million dollars, and over thirty-three miles of it were granite blocks. Street railways have also been pushed all over the territory. The total of street lines is already over one hundred and fifty-four miles, and over thirty miles of these give rapid transit by cable. These facilities make the whole of the wide territory available for business and residence, and give the poorest inhabitants the means of reaching the parks.

The park system is on the most liberal scale, both public and private; the parks are already famous for extent and beauty, but when the projected connecting boulevards are made they will attain world-wide notoriety. The most extensive of the private parks is that of the combined Agricultural Fair Grounds and Zoological Gardens. Here is held annually the St. Louis Fair, which is said to be the largest in the United States. The enclosure is finely laid out and planted, and contains an extensive park, exhibition buildings, cottages, a race-track, an amphitheatre, which suggests in size and construction some of the largest Spanish bull-rings, and picturesque houses for wild animals. The zoological exhibition is a very good one. There are eighteen public parks. One of the smaller (thirty acres) of these, and one of the oldest, is Lafayette Park, on the south side. Its beauty surprised me more than almost anything I saw in the city. It is a gem; just that artificial control of nature which most pleases—forest-trees, a pretty lake, fountains, flowers, walks planned to give everywhere exquisite vistas. It contains a statue of Thomas II. Benton, which may be a likeness, but utterly fails to give the character of the man. The largest is Forest Park, on the west side, a tract of 1372 acres, mostly forest, improved by excellent drives, and left as much as possible in a natural condition. It has ten miles of good driving-roads. This park cost the city about $850,000, and nearly as much more has been expended on it since its purchase. The surface has great variety of slopes, glens, elevations, lakes, and meadows. During the summer music is furnished in a handsome pagoda, and the place is much resorted to. Fronting the boulevard are statues of Governor Edward Bates and Frank P. Blair, the latter very characteristic.

Next in importance is Tower Grove Park, an oblong of 276 acres. This and Shaw’s Garden, adjoining, have been given to the city by Mr. Henry Shaw, an Englishman who made his fortune in the city, and they remain under his control as to care and adornment during his life. Those who have never seen foreign parks and pleasure-gardens can obtain a very good idea of their formal elegance and impressiveness by visiting Tower Grove Park and the Botanical Gardens. They will see the perfection of lawns, avenues ornamented by statuary, flower-beds, and tasteful walks. The entrances, with stone towers and lodges, suggest similar effects in France and in England. About the music-stand are white marble busts of six chief musical composers. The drives are adorned with three statues in bronze, thirty feet high, designed and cast in Munich by Frederick Millier. They are figures of Shakespeare, Humboldt, and Columbus, and so nobly conceived and executed that the patriotic American must wish they had been done in this country. Of Shaw’s Botanical Garden I need to say little, for its fame as a comprehensive and classified collection of trees, plants, and flowers is world-wide. It has no equal in this country. As a place for botanical study no one appreciated it more highly than the late Professor Asa Gray. Sometimes a peculiar classification is followed; one locality’ is devoted to economic plants—camphor, quinine, cotton, tea, coffee, etc.; another to “Plants of the Bible.” The space of fifty-four acres, enclosed by high stone walls, contains, besides the open garden and allées and glass houses, the summer residence and the tomb of Mr. Shaw. This old gentleman, still vigorous in his eighty-eighth year, is planning new adornments in the way of statuary and busts of statesmen, poets, and scientists. His plans are all liberal and cosmopolitan. For over thirty years his botanical knowledge, his taste, and abundant wealth and leisure have been devoted to the creation of this wonderful garden and park, which all bear the stamp of his strong individuality, and of a certain pleasing foreign formality. What a source of unfailing delight it must have been to him! As we sat talking with him I thought how other millionaires, if they knew how, might envy a matured life, after the struggle for a competency is over, devoted to this most rational enjoyment, in an occupation as elevating to the taste as to the character, and having in mind always the public good. Over the entrance gate is the inscription, “Missouri Botanical Gardens.” When the city has full control of the garden the word “Missouri” should be replaced by “Shaw.”

The money expended for public parks gives some idea of the liberal and far-sighted provision for the health and pleasure of a great city. The parks originally cost the city 81,309,944, and three millions more have been spent upon their improvement and maintenance. This indicates an enlightened spirit, which we shall see characterizes the city in other things, and is evidence of a high degree of culture.

Of the commerce and manufactures of the town I can give no adequate statement without going into details, which my space forbids. The importance of the Mississippi River is much emphasized, not only as an actual highway of traffic, but as a regulator of railway rates. The town has by the official reports been discriminated against, and even the Inter-State Act has not afforded all the relief expected. In 1887 the city shipped to foreign markets by way of the Mississippi and the jetties 3,973,000 bushels of wheat and 7,365,000 bushels of corn—a larger exportation than ever before except in the years 1880 and 1881. An outlet like this is of course a check on railway charges. The trade of the place employs a banking capital of fifteen millions. The deposits in 1887 were thirty-seven millions; the clearings over 8894,527,731—the largest ever reached, and over ten per cent, in excess of the clearings of 1886. To whatever departments I turn in the report of the Merchants’ Exchange for 1887 I find a vigorous growth—as in building—and in most articles of commerce a great increase. It appears by the tonnage statements that, taking receipts and shipments together, 12,060,995 tons of freight were handled in and out during 1886, against 14,359,059 tons in 1887—a gain of nineteen and a half per cent. The buildings in 1886 cost $7,030,819; in 1887, $8,162,914. There were $44,740 more stamps sold at the post-office in 1887 than in 1886. The custom-house collections were less than in 1886, but reached the figures of $1,414,747. The assessed value of real and personal property in 1887 was $217,142,320, on which the rate of taxation in the old city limits was $2.50.

It is never my intention in these papers to mention individual enterprises for their own sake, but I do not hesitate to do so when it is necessary in order to illustrate some peculiar development. It is a curious matter of observation that so many Western cities have one or more specialties in which they excel—houses of trade or manufacture larger and more important than can be found elsewhere. St. Louis finds itself in this category in regard to several establishments. One of these is a wooden-ware company, the largest of the sort in the country, a house which gathers its peculiar goods from all over the United States, and distributes them almost as widely—a business of gigantic proportions and bewildering detail. Its annual sales amount to as much as the sales of all the houses in its line in New York, Chicago, and Cincinnati together. Another is a hardware company, wholesale and retail, also the largest of its kind in the country, with sales annually amounting to six millions of dollars, a very large amount when we consider that it is made up of an infinite number of small and cheap articles in iron, from a fish-hook up—indeed, over fifty thousand separate articles. I spent half a day in this establishment, walking through its departments, noting the unequalled system of compact display, classification, and methods of sale and shipment. Merely as a method of system in business I have never seen anything more interesting. Another establishment, important on account of its central position in the continent and its relation to the Louisiana sugar-fields, is the St. Louis Sugar Refinery.

The refinery proper is the largest building in the Western country used for manufacturing purposes, and, together with its adjuncts of cooper-shops and warehouses, covers five entire blocks and employs 500 men. It has a capacity of working up 400 tons of raw sugar a day, but runs only to the extent of about 200 tons a day, making the value of its present product $7,500,000 a year.

During the winter and spring it uses Louisiana sugars; the remainder of the year, sugars of Cuba and the Sandwich Islands. Like all other refineries of which I have inquired, this reckons the advent of the Louisiana crop as an important regulator of prices. This establishment, in common with other industries of the city, has had to complain of business somewhat hampered by discrimination in railway rates. St. Louis also has what I suppose, from the figures accessible, to be the largest lager-beer brewing establishment in the world; its solid, gigantic, and architecturally imposing buildings lift themselves up like a fortress over the thirty acres of ground they cover. Its manufacture and sales in 1887 were 456,511 barrels of beer—an increase of nearly 100,000 since 1885-86. It exports largely to Mexico, South America, the West Indies, and Australia. The establishment is a marvel of system and ingenious devices. It employs 1200 laborers, to whom it pays $500,000 a year. Some of the details are of interest. In the bottling department we saw workmen filling, corking, labelling, and packing at the rate of 100,000 bottles a day. In a year 25,000,000 bottles are used, packed in 400,000 barrels and boxes. The consumption of barley is 1,100,000 bushels yearly, and of hops over 700,000 pounds, and the amount of water used for all purposes is 250,000,000 gallons—nearly enough to float our navy. The charges for freight received and shipped by rail amount to nearly a million dollars a year. There are several other large breweries in the city. The total product manufactured in 1887 was 1,383,301 barrels, equal to 43,575,872 gallons—more than three times the amount of 1877. The barley used in the city and vicinity was 2,932,192 bushels, of which 340,335 bushels came from Canada. The direct export of beer during 1887 to foreign countries was equal to 1,924,108 quart bottles. The greater part of the barley used comes from Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.