The spirited figure of La Salle (given by Lambert Tree) and Martin Ryerson's Indian group, are both fine memorials of the dawn of things in the North-West. Eli Bates's matchless statue of Lincoln is devoted to a page in the history of the whole Union. Now comes Chicago's latest treasure, the magnificent group commemorating the massacre of 1812; a purely civic work, to keep in the minds of Chicago's citizens, for untold generations, the romance and reality of her struggling infancy. Honor to the men who, in the intense pressure of the present, still have thoughts for the past and the future. * * * * * At the unveiling, (1881) of the Block-House Tablet (designed by the Chicago Historical Society) set by William M. Hoyt in the north wall of his warehouse, facing Rush Street Bridge from the south, Mr. Eugene Hall read some stanzas of original verse so musical, so poetic and so apt for the occasion, that I venture (with his permission) to repeat them here, as a finish to our story. * * * * * [Illustration: BEAUBIEN FIDDLE AND CALUMET, IN POSSESSION OF THE CALUMET CLUB.] FORT DEARBORN, CHICAGO, 1881. Here, where the savage war-whoop once resounded, Where council fires burned brightly years ago, Where the red Indian from his covert bounded To scalp his pale-faced foe: Here, where grey badgers had their haunts and burrows, Where wild wolves howled and prowled in midnight bands, Where frontier farmers turned the virgin furrows, Our splendid city stands. Here, where brave men and helpless women perished, Here, where in unknown graves their forms decay; This marble, that their memory may be cherished, We consecrate today. No more the farm-boy's call, or lowing cattle. Frighten the timid wild fowl from the slough: The noisy trucks and wagons roll and rattle O'er miles of pavement now. Now are our senses startled and confounded. By screaming whistle and by clanging bell. Where Beaubien's merry fiddle once resounded When summer twilight fell. Here stood the fort with palisades about it. With low log block-house in those early hours; The prairie fair extended far without it. Blooming with fragrant flowers. About this spot the buildings quickly clustered; The logs decayed, the palisade went down. Here the resistless Western spirit mustered And built this wondrous town. Here from the trackless plain its structures started. And one by one, in splendor rose to view. The white ships went and came, the years departed, And still she grandly grew.