The curse of Chicago is the vile, repugnant saloon. No one can realize the picture of its rottenness all at once; everything is deceptive about it, and it takes time to grasp the magnitude of this hydra-headed monster. But by degrees the immensity and appalling environments assert themselves, and the beholder, while visiting these pest holes, feels and knows that he is in close proximity to the devil. The very atmosphere seems laden with his satanic majesty’s presence, which permeates every nook and corner of the iniquitous place. Here, above all other places, the devil’s work is supreme. Awful, indeed, is the anguish of the mother as she looks upon the face of her ruined son or daughter.

Oh! Chicago! big, bustling Chicago! Storms and tempests may rage around, and the sun’s fierce rays descend upon your brow; you may be victorious in commercial conflict, but sink into insignificance when facing the greatest of social evils.

There are, however, no rivals among these dangerous dives, which stand out like projecting rocks as pitfalls for the weak.

There are about 7,000 saloons in Chicago. At each of these places liquors are sold by the single glass or drink. They represent every grade of drinking establishments, from the magnificent Buffet to the “Barrel-houses.” All these places enjoy a greater or less degree of prosperity, and the proprietors grow rich, unless they cut short their lives by becoming their own best customers. For alcoholic and malt liquors served over the bar hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent daily. It is estimated that in the vicinity of the board of trade 7,500 drinks are disposed of every day. The “bulls and bears” require heavy stimulants to keep them up to their exciting work, and their daily expenditure for such purposes is about $2,500. Probably this may account for some of the queer scenes to be witnessed in the pit.

The quantity of beer consumed in the city is about twelve times that of whisky, and is the most common of the alcoholic drinks. The true-blooded German beer drinker will consume from one to two dozen glasses of his favorite beverage in twenty-four hours and his American and other imitators follow closely in his footsteps.

A popular bar will take in $200 to $400 a day, but the majority of the liquor dealers are content with from $30 to $50 a day. Some of these places remain open all night, and are filled with dram drinkers at all hours. At the first-class establishments the liquors sold are of good quality, but as the scale is descended the quality of the drinks fall off, until the low-class bar-rooms are reached in which the most poisonous compounds are sold, under the name of whisky, brandy, gin and rum.

The American saloon is the curse of the nation. Hundreds of thousands of men and women are being ruined annually, and our government, it seems, is powerless to curb the destroying monster.

There are over 1400 girls in the training school for girls, and with few exceptions they have been children of an alcoholic inheritance. Are they to be blamed for the circumstances surrounding their young lives? Not at all. The whole blame lies at the door of those who have voted to license the saloon which has made it possible for the parents to so poison their physical being that it is not possible for them to bring into the world normal children with the powers that would enable them to cope with the world.

The number of moral imbeciles that are in the state institutions is simply appalling, and there are object lessons enough in Chicago to cause any one who will give the subject but a moment of good, unselfish thought, to go to the polls and declare that no longer shall be fostered in our midst that which in the course of time will make us no better than a nation of lepers. Some day parents will recognize the responsibility of bringing children into the world.

The American woman of the fashionable set lives in a whirl of unhealthful stress and excitement. She sleeps too little and keeps her nerves constantly on the Qui Vive. She tipples and drugs, she is often a degenerate and a mother of degenerates—if, indeed, she be a mother at all. This drinking among women is more prevalent than we are willing to believe, and it is one of the greatest dangers with which we are confronted today. The hurry and fret of Chicago life is turning out degenerates at a rate that will one day stagger the world.

Ignorance and bad parentage are doing the work in many instances, and girls comparatively good are led off by bad men and worse women. Children who have been well born and should have been well reared, find their way into the schools of delinquents, the jails, penitentiaries, and insane hospitals. The heredity of many of these children is appalling and the environments does the rest.

The “barrel-houses” are located in the poorer sections of the city where the liquors of the vilest kind are sold. Their customers are the poor and wretched. Only the cheapest and poisonous liquors are sold here as a rule.

It is impossible to estimate the amount of drunkenness in Chicago. The arrests represent but a small part of it, as thousands upon thousands of habitual drunkards manage to keep out of the hands of the police. Respectable men patronize the bar-rooms regularly, and are constantly seen reeling along the streets. So long as they are not helpless, or guilty of disorderly conduct, the police do not molest them. Systematic drinking, which does not amount to actual intoxication, but kills by slow degrees, is very common. Among the most liberal patrons of the bar-rooms are young men and even boys, who thoughtlessly begin their careers that will one day end in sorrow.

Drunkenness is by no means confined to men. Women are largely addicted to it. Out of some twelve arrests for this cause three are women. In the more wretched quarters of the city, women drink heavily and are among the most constant customers of the cheap groggeries which thrive among the poor. Even women of respectability and good social positions are guilty of the vice of intemperance. They all do not frequent bar-rooms, however, but obtain liquor at the restaurants patronized by them, and it is a common sight to see well-dressed women, married and single, rise from a restaurant table under the influence of intoxicating drink.

The poem of Francis E. Bolton, tells the story of the rum demon.