vault and cellar-room, are on the low grounds skirting the river. The smoke from their chimneys floats westward when the wind is from the lake, or out through this broad natural groove to sea. Over the breezy heights whereon are placed the residence section, our skies are undimmed by sooty clouds. Yonder towards the lake front lies one section, that through which we drove; but westward and southwestward lies still another, of ten times the acreage of that through which we passed, and, in the eyes of those at least who there have built their nests, more dustry and enterprise, for they are the homes of men, every penny of whose fortune was made in Milwaukee. Parallel with Grand Avenue are other broad and shaded streets bordered on both sides with homesteads less pretentious and ornate, perhaps, but of graceful style and cosey, even commodious interior. Here and there dart the swift electric cars. Rapid transit is a problem that has but recently been solved with us; but now one can go from the heart of the business section of the city to the outlying districts in half Puck's forty minutes. All the beautiful newly-graded suburbs to the north between the river and the lake front are to-day within easy range of the court-house, the banks, and the big retail stores. As to population, we are indeed somewhat European. The southwestern section of the city is given over almost entirely to Poland, and a large colony of Chimney-piece in T. A. Chapman's Store. that hard-working and frugal nationality is planted close to the river bank in the uppermost ward of the East Side. Twenty thousand strong were these hardy people a year ago, and already they are thoroughly at home, many of them owning their little cottages, and some of the most lucrative and important of the municipal offices being graced by their distinguished if somewhat difficult names. The Pole is a power in local politics, as every would-be officeholder knows, and here as elsewhere "the longest pole - but that is a Southern, not a New England allegory. We have our Sobieski and Pulaski streets, our Kosciusko Guard, stalwart soldiers they are, too, whose appearance under arms would rejoice the heart of a Massachusetts or Connecticut inspector, but whose muster-roll would dazzle his eyes and baffle his powers of speech. We have our Kuryer Polski, which is the official organ of these sturdy descendants of "Warsaw's last champion," and many of them can read it, though when their children go to school is a mystery to him whose workshop windows overlook the backyards and intervening alley-ways in one of our pleasantest residence blocks, and who sees squad after squad of tiny scavengers, from early morn till dewy eve, scouring the premises, raking over the ashheaps and garbage-barrels, sometimes even "raking off" such items as have incautiously been left too near the fence. As for Germany, there is no part of the city it has not reached. Baden and Bavaria, Hesse and Hanover, Prussia, Pomerania and Wurtemburg, all are here, and here to stay. Nearly one hundred thousand strong in '85 was the contingent born in or descended from the lands of the Rhine, the Elber, the Oder and the Weser. They began coming by squads early in the fifties and by battalions later. In '85 our population was less than 160,000. Now, with a total of 225,000, it is not an over estimate to say that much more than half are Germans. A very pessimistic paper in Chicago found much comfort during a brief and meteoric career in frequent paradings in its pages of the names of the city fathers of Milwaukee. German and Polish certainly predominated. for a few Anarchists and ultra Socialists, who were tolerated in their midst, more law-abiding and home-loving citizens, more honest and reliable public officials than these Germans are rarely to be found in any community. New England sees so little of them, that New Englanders can have little idea how quickly they adapt themselves to republican institutions, and how thoroughly they appreciate the blessings of American liberty. Of other nationalities we have but few. "Ould Ireland," once a potent factor in Wisconsin politics, is now practically "out of it." Hardly 1,000 Sons of St. Patrick, probably not more than 5,000 Hibernians all told, can we muster today. Sons of Ham are fewer still. There are barely 500 colored people in the city. Pig-tailed Celestials will not mount up to threescore; and, while statistics are in order, let me say that in 1840 we had not 2,000 people within our gates; in 1850 we had 20,000, most of whom had come from New York and New England. These were the men who lifted Milwaukee out of its wilderness and started her on the road to wealth. Look around you now from this commanding height. Note the evidences of thrift, prosperity and comfort on every side in these far-spreading northern suburbs. This was all virgin forest when Yankee brains first planned and Yankee hands hewed out from bluff and wood, those busy, bustling thoroughfares in the valley of old Mahnawauk below Juneau and Walker and Kilbourn, the earliest of our landholders, were not, 'tis true, New England men; but presently these came in scores. us. Back to our carriage now, and on to breakfast; we can recapitulate as we go. Forty years ago, when Milwaukee was in her teens, there was only one business street to speak of, that which ran parallel with the river on its eastern verge. There was just room between the sidewalk and the shores on which to build fairly substantial frame stores, and later, after vigorous hammering with the old-fashioned pile-driver, to plant the foundations of more ambitious structures with solid walls of brick. Bricks with straw, be it understood, both within and without; for, thanks to beds of peculiar clay, the vegetable sinew was reproduced in the color. Later, in the nascent æstheticism of the populace, the individuality gained through the hue of its building block gave to the town the title by which it is known poetically to-day- the Cream City; and though our cream really is not brick color, nor our brick, cream color, the subtlety of the description lay in the fact that we would not speak of it either as straw or clay color, and the nearest thing we could think of that pleased the senses was cream. Very dainty and fresh was the appearance of our new-made walls. Spick, span, new and glistening with white paint and green were the frame cottages among the bold bluffs of the East Side. Trim and orderly were the little garden patches with beds of geranium and verbena, and the rows of mountain ash-trees along the fences, the sprightly young elms just being trained to shoot at the edge of the broad wooden sidewalk. Very familiar were the names on every sign along that main business street, from its southern end at the Walker's Point bridge to its bifurcation at Market Square. Seven long, irregular blocks were there, and many a name recalled the days of Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill and Bennington. From the Penobscot, the Merrimac, the Thames, or the Connecticut, vigorous young men had pushed into the far western wilderness, ousting the Pottawotomie as their sires did the Pequots. We had our little colony of canny Scots, small in number, but big in influence. We had a few Pennsylvanians, and a great draft from the Empire State, but these latter were only transient Knickerbockers; for with some exceptions the New York families whose sons and daughters sailed in those early days around the chain of lakes to seek their fortunes along the shores of Lake Illini hailed from the land of the Puritan, and, whatsoever may have been the influences that brought about the subsequent change, the early days of fair Milwaukee, the alert, vigorous, pushing, conquering days, were those when the blood and brain of the New England States led in our councils and ruled in our debates. Before she was fairly in |