The Federal troops occupied Mobile immediately upon the surrender by Mayor Slough on April 12th, camping in the suburbs, on Government Street and elsewhere. One unfortunate result was the terrible explosion on May 25th, from careless handling of ammunition in a warehouse on Water and Lipscomb Streets. There were hundreds killed, more than $700,000 of warehouse property was destroyed, and the whole business section of the city was injured. Such was the return of peace! * * * * * Mobile, since the Civil War, offers a fruitful field for study. The few flush years, when commerce first revived; Reconstruction, with slaves over masters; bond issues from 1870 on railroads that were never built, resulting in bankruptcy in 1879; the panics of 1873 and 1893, the first of which depressed everything, while the other showed that Mobile had become sound again; new railroads and commercial growth in every line, consequent on the Government’s cutting the ship channel, twenty-three feet deep, through the bars to the lower bay; the growing rivalry of the Gulf port with Eastern harbors for the Western trade to Latin America and even Europe; the passing of the once dreaded yellow fever; the good relations which have existed between the negroes and whites since they were relieved of outside interference; the Cuban War, with its American soldiers (some from Mobile) encamped on ground once occupied by Confederates, and the picturesque embarkation of troops for Santiago; extensive municipal improvements; impressive public structures, such as the Y. M. C. A. Building, new hotels, and the Semmes statue; the advance of literature, also, which has kept Augusta Evans as Mrs. Wilson, and added Madame Chaudron, Father Ryan, T. C. De Leon, Amélie Rives, Hannis Taylor, and others:--these things are important, but are too recent for detailed treatment. [Illustration: AUGUSTA EVANS WILSON.]