Oh! Chicago! big, bustling Chicago! Storms and tempests may rage around, and the sun’s fierce rays descend upon your brow; you may be victorious in commercial conflict, but sink into insignificance when facing the greatest of social evils. There are, however, no rivals among these dangerous dives, which stand out like projecting rocks as pitfalls for the weak. There are about 7,000 saloons in Chicago. At each of these places liquors are sold by the single glass or drink. They represent every grade of drinking establishments, from the magnificent Buffet to the “Barrel-houses.” All these places enjoy a greater or less degree of prosperity, and the proprietors grow rich, unless they cut short their lives by becoming their own best customers. For alcoholic and malt liquors served over the bar hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent daily. It is estimated that in the vicinity of the board of trade 7,500 drinks are disposed of every day. The “bulls and bears” require heavy stimulants to keep them up to their exciting work, and their daily expenditure for such purposes is about $2,500. Probably this may account for some of the queer scenes to be witnessed in the pit. The quantity of beer consumed in the city is about twelve times that of whisky, and is the most common of the alcoholic drinks. The true-blooded German beer drinker will consume from one to two dozen glasses of his favorite beverage in twenty-four hours and his American and other imitators follow closely in his footsteps. A popular bar will take in $200 to $400 a day, but the majority of the liquor dealers are content with from $30 to $50 a day. Some of these places remain open all night, and are filled with dram drinkers at all hours. At the first-class establishments the liquors sold are of good quality, but as the scale is descended the quality of the drinks fall off, until the low-class bar-rooms are reached in which the most poisonous compounds are sold, under the name of whisky, brandy, gin and rum. The American saloon is the curse of the nation. Hundreds of thousands of men and women are being ruined annually, and our government, it seems, is powerless to curb the destroying monster. There are over 1400 girls in the training school for girls, and with few exceptions they have been children of an alcoholic inheritance. Are they to be blamed for the circumstances surrounding their young lives? Not at all. The whole blame lies at the door of those who have voted to license the saloon which has made it possible for the parents to so poison their physical being that it is not possible for them to bring into the world normal children with the powers that would enable them to cope with the world.