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unclear 227 Chicago well deserves its reputation. Its stores, & private houses & Churches are good, & wd be so considered in any city. Its stores are in buildings two floors higher than the shopes of Oxford, or Regent St, as is generally the case in all the large American cities. They have an air of solidity, & are not entirely devoid of external decoration. There are suburbs containing many good private residences, the best of which are to be seen in Michigan Avenue, along the shores of the Lake. These are built of a cream coloured stone, & many of them give me a favourable idea of the architectural taste, as well as of the wealth, of their inhabitants. From the gallery of the City Hall I counted twenty three towers & spires, but this is very far from giving the number of Churches, as perhaps the majority of them are without these embellishments. In the central parts of the city where all the buildings are good & massive, & the smoke, for here they burn bituminous coal, has put a complexion upon them something like that of London, you cd never guess that you were standing in a city so young, that many of its inhabitants, still young themselves, remember the erection of the first brick house in the place; you wd be more likely to suppose that you were surrounded by the evidences & appearances of the commerical prosperity of many generations. On my mentioning to "a citizen" of Chicago the number of the Churches I had counted from the top of the City Hall; "Yes," he replied, "we are a religious people outwardly".