of poor young men. The Chicago Athenæum is a private philanthropic institution, maintaining daily and nightly sessions for a considerable part of the year, to which students are admitted at any time on payment of a nominal tuition fee. It has also a library and reading-room.
Libraries. Chicago has three great libraries, besides that of the University of Chicago. The Public Library, with over 300,000 volumes, founded in 1872, has one of the largest circulations in the country, and maintains 50 or more delivery stations at various points in the city. The Newberry Library is a reference library, containing notably fine collections on music, medicine, and religion. The John Crerar Library, which occupies temporary quarters until its permanent home shall be erected in the South Division, is endowed with $2,500,000, and has valuable works on natural, physical, and social science. Accessions to these libraries are made with reference to the other book collections in the city, thus affording opportunity for a wide range of study. The library of the Chicago Law Institute is large and valuable, and the Chicago Historical Society has a fine collection of Americana. There are also the libraries of the several educational institutions, and of the Chicago Academy of Sciences and the Field Columbian Museum.
Charitable Institutions. The city contains a great number of hospitals—the largest being the Cook County Hospital; the Presbyterian; the United States Marine Hospital, one of the largest of its kind in the country; Saint Luke's and Saint Joseph's Hospitals; the Women's Hospital; and the Hospital of the Alexian Brothers. There are many dispensaries, asylums, and homes, day nurseries, reformatories, and relief societies. One of the most interesting institutions is the Armour Mission (non-sectarian), the object of which is industrial, mental, and religious training. It is maintained as a memorial to Mr. Joseph Armour. The oldest and most influential of the social settlements of the city is Hull House, modeled after Toynbee Hall, London, and situated in the slum and Ghetto district on the West Side. Next in order of importance are Chicago Commons, also on the West Side; Northwestern University settlement, in the northwestern section of the city; and the University of Chicago settlement, in the stockyards district. These settlements are contiguous to or are surrounded by foreign colonies. The Chicago Bureau of Justice employs legal talent in aiding the poor to recover just wage-claims. The Bureau of Associated Charities carries on a worthy work by means of its summer camps and outings; and the Chicago Charity Organization Society, made up of representatives from the various allied organizations, exercises to some extent a centralized power by virtue of its general supervision.
Theatres, Clubs, Hotels. There are numerous first-class theatres and places of amusement in Chicago. The leading playhouses are the Auditorium, Bush Temple, Chicago Opera House, Dearborn, Grand Opera House, Great Northern, Illinois, McVicker's, Powers, and Studebaker.
The leading clubs are the Argo, Athletic, Calumet, Chicago, Illinois, Iroquois, La Salle, Marquette, Standard Union, Union League, the Chicago Women's Club, and the Woman's Athletic Club. The Calumet, Chicago, Athletic, and Union League have magnificent club-houses.
Chicago is known as a great convention city. Its hotel accommodations, which were increased considerably for the World's Fair, are very extensive. Among the most prominent hotels are the Auditorium, with a large annex; the Great Northern, Metropole, Palmer House, Grand Pacific, Wellington, Lexington, Victoria, Virginia, and the Sherman House.
Commerce and Industry. The secret of Chicago's rapid development is found in its commanding position relative to an extensive and phenomenally productive region. Situated at the southern end of Lake Michigan, the city enjoys the navigable facilities of the Great Lakes, while the railways crossing the country from the East to the Northwest naturally touch here. The Southern lines, connecting with the Great Lakes, also find it a natural terminal point. Chicago, the greatest railway-centre of the United States, is therefore of first importance as a collecting and distributing centre. The numerous railways converging in and tributary to the city operate 120,000 miles of line, two-thirds of the total mileage of the United States. These connections reach every State of the Union; also Canada and Mexico. The railways are supplemented, too, by lake navigation. Lines of steamers connect Chicago not only with the Northern States and Canada, but with the outside world. The importance of this outlet has greatly increased with the recent improvements in canals at different points, ocean vessels now making their way to Chicago. Many difficulties still beset this branch of transportation, however, and its practicability on an extensive scale is yet to be determined. Perhaps the possibility of uniting Chicago with the Gulf of Mexico is equally significant. It is estimated, indeed, that the new sewerage canal connecting Lake Michigan with the Mississippi River represents two-thirds of the work necessary to make of it a ship canal.
The port of Chicago owes much to the presence of rivers. The mouth of the Chicago River, formerly a sluggish bayou, has been deepened by piers that extend into the lake, leaving an entrance-way about 500 feet wide; while long breakwaters on the east and southeast, constructed by the United States Government, form an outer harbor with an average depth of 16 feet, and an area of about 455 acres. Additional protection to vessels is given by an exterior breakwater, 5436 feet long, which extends in a northeasterly direction about a mile from the river's mouth. In South Chicago, at the northern mouth of Calumet River, is another harbor, 300 feet wide between piers. The Illinois and Michigan Canal, constructed in 1836-48, connecting with the Mississippi and its affluents, is no longer an important means of transportation. This canal extends to La Salle, the head of navigation on the Illinois. It is 96 miles in length, and at its highest level was originally 12 feet above the lake; but in 1866-70 the city deepened it, so that it is now 8½ feet below the ordinary level of the lake.
The tonnage of vessels arriving at Chicago in 1900 was 7,044,000, as against 4,616,000 in 1880. This places Chicago next to London, New York, and Antwerp as a commercial port. There is a decided increase in the average tonnage of vessels frequenting Chicago, as is evident from the fact that during the above period the number of vessels decreased from 13,218 to 8714. Foreign exports by lake increased from $3,900,000 in 1891
