The value of the Great Lakes as a social and recreational medium is hardly less than their importance as commercial highways. The saltless seas are lined with summer colonies and in all the lake cities piers and beaches are a boon to the many who seek relief from the heat which we of the West always speak of defensively as essential to the perfecting of the corn that is our pride. Chicago’s joke that it is the best of summer resorts is not without some foundation; certainly one may find there every variety of amusement except salt-water bathing. The salt’s stimulus is not missed apparently by the vast number of citizens--estimated at two hundred thousand daily during the fiercest heat--who disport themselves on the shore. The new municipal pier is a prodigious structure, and I know of no place in America where the student of mankind may more profitably plant himself for an evening of contemplation. [Illustration: Types and diversions. A popular bathing beach on Lake Erie, near the town of Sandusky.] What struck me in a series of observations of the people at play, extending round the lakes from Chicago to Cleveland, was the general good order and decorum. At Detroit I was introduced to two dancing pavilions on the riverside, where the prevailing sobriety was most depressing in view of my promise to the illustrator that somewhere in our pilgrimage I should tax his powers with scenes of depravity and violence. A quarter purchased a string of six tickets, and one of these deposited in a box entitled the owner to take the floor with a partner. As soon as a dance and its several encores was over the floor cleared instantly and one was required to relinquish another ticket. There and in a similar dance-hall in a large Cleveland amusement park fully one-third of the patrons were young women who danced together throughout the evening, and often children tripped into the picture. Chaperonage was afforded by vigilant parents comfortably established in the balcony. The Cleveland resort, accessible to any one for a small fee, interested me particularly because the people were so well apparelled, so “good-looking,” and the atmosphere was so charged with the spirit of neighborliness. The favorite dances there were the waltz (old style), the fox-trot, and the schottische. I confess that this recrudescence of the schottische in Cleveland, a progressive city that satisfies so many of the cravings of the aspiring soul--the home of three-cent car-fares and a noble art museum--greatly astonished me. But for the fact that warning of each number was flashed on the wall I should not have trusted my judgment that what I beheld was, indeed, the schottische. Frankly I do not care for the schottische, and it may have been that my tone or manner betokened resentment at its revival; at any rate a policeman whom I interviewed outside the pavilion eyed me with suspicion when I expressed surprise that the schottische was so frequently announced.