It is said that Chicago is the wickedest city in the country. It is the second largest, and vice thrives and reigns supreme in crowded communities. How great this wickedness is we may see in the subsequent portions of this work. If it is the wickedest city, it is also one of the best on the continent. If it contains thousands of the worst men and women in our land, it contains also thousands of the brightest and best of Christians. In point of morality, it will compare favorably with any city in the world. It is unhappily true that the devil’s work is done here upon a large scale; but so is the work of God upon an even greater scale. If the city contains the gaudiest, the most alluring, and the vilest haunts of sin, it also boasts of the noblest and grandest institutions of religion, of charity, and virtue. I have spoken of the energy of the people in matters of business; they are, in all respects the most enterprising in the Union. They are bold and self-reliant; they take risks in business from which others shrink, and carry their ventures forward with a resolution and vigor that cannot fail of success. It is this that has made Chicago great; its people take a large, liberal view of matters; they are cosmopolitan in all things. As a place of residence to those who have the means to justify it, Chicago is a most delightful city. Its attractions are many and it possesses a peculiar charm, which all who have dwelt within its borders feel. To the dweller in Chicago, State Street is what the Boulevards are to the Parisians. It is the center of life, gayety and business; the great artery through which flows the strong life-current of the metropolis. From the Chicago River to Twelfth Street it is thronged with a busy crowd of workers, restless pleasure-seekers, the good and the bad, the grave and the gay, all hurrying on in eager pursuit of the “show street” of the city, and certainly no more wonderful sight can be witnessed than this grand thoroughfare at high noon. As night comes on the great hotels, restaurants and business emporiums, send out a blaze of light, and are alive with visitors. The crowd is out for pleasure at night, and many and varied are the forms which the pursuit of it takes. Here is a family—father, mother and children—out for a stroll to see the sights they have witnessed a hundred times, and which never grow dull; there is a party of theatre-goers, bent on an evening of innocent amusement; here is a “gang of roughs,” swaggering along the sidewalks, jostling all who come within their way; here a party of young bloods, out on a lark, are drawing upon themselves the keen glances of the stalwart policeman, as he slowly follows them.