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.