Indianapolis became a city rather against its will. It liked its own way, and its way was slow; but when the calamity could no longer be averted, it had its trousers creased and its shoes polished, and accepted with good grace the fact that its population had reached two hundred thousand, and that it had crept to a place comfortably near the top in the list of bank clearances. A man who left Indianapolis in 1885, returned in 1912--the Indianapolitan, like the cat in the ballad, always comes back; he cannot successfully be transplanted--to find himself a stranger in a strange city. Once he knew all the people who rode in chaises; but on his return he found new people flying about in automobiles that cost more than any but the most prosperous citizen earned in the horse-car days; once he had been able to discuss current topics with a passing friend in the middle of Washington Street; now he must duck and dive, and keep an eye on the policeman if he would make a safe crossing. He is asked to luncheon at a club; in the old days there were no clubs, or they were looked on as iniquitous things; he is carried off to inspect factories which are the largest of their kind in the world. At the railroad yards he watches the loading of machinery for shipment to Russia and Chili, and he is driven over asphalt streets to parks that had not been dreamed of before his term of exile. Manufacturing is the great business of the city, still sootily advertised on the local countenance in spite of heroic efforts to enforce smoke-abatement ordinances. There are nearly two thousand establishments within its limits where manufacturing in some form is carried on. Many of these rose in the day of natural gas, and it was predicted that when the gas had been exhausted the city would lose them; but the number has increased steadily despite the failure of the gas supply. There are abundant coal-fields within the State, so that the question of fuel will not soon be troublesome. The city enjoys, also, the benefits to be derived from the numerous manufactories in other towns of central Indiana, many of which maintain administrative offices there. It is not only a good place in which to make things, but a point from which many things may be sold to advantage. Jobbing flourished even before manufacturing attained its present proportions. The jobbers have given the city an enviable reputation for enterprise and fair dealing. When you ask an Indianapolis jobber whether the propinquity of St. Louis, Cincinnati, Chicago, and Cleveland is not against him, he answers that he meets his competitors daily in every part of the country and is not afraid of them.