tional, one Unitarian, one Lutheran, and one chapel for the colored population. Numerically the Catholic and Methodist denominations are the strongest, and the Unitarian the weakest.
Public amusements are only tolerably well supported. A fine theatre, however, is in course of construction, which will supply a public want. An Academy of Music, and a Musical Society, supported principally by the Jews, give occasional entertainments; and the brass bands are in the habit of discoursing sweet sounds upon the Plaza one or two afternoons in a week, when all the youth, beauty, and fashion of Portland come out for a promenade. A skating-rink furnishes amusement to the lovers of that exercise. Driving fast horses is quite a fashionable recreation; and an exhibition of Oregon stock is by no means an inferior one. A public library, comprising four or five thousand volumes, with a handsome chess-room in connection, offers attractions to the visitor and resident alike. The Young Men's Christian Association have also a reading-room in the same building.
The Odd Fellows have four associations, and a very fine temple; the Masonic Order, three associations and an elegant building; the Good Templars have three lodges, and there are several benevolent societies besides. The Fire Department consists of over two hundred active members, with two steam fire-engines, two hand-engines, and one hook-and-ladder truck, and hose carts. The department is very efficient, and large fires are of rare occurrence.
There are in Portland three large book-stores, and one or two stationery stores; three daily and weekly political newspapers, and one religious paper, published weekly; there are four banking-houses, in-
