As a place of residence to those who have the means to justify it, Chicago is a most delightful city. Its attractions are many and it possesses a peculiar charm, which all who have dwelt within its borders feel.
To the dweller in Chicago, State Street is what the Boulevards are to the Parisians. It is the center of life, gayety and business; the great artery through which flows the strong life-current of the metropolis. From the Chicago River to Twelfth Street it is thronged with a busy crowd of workers, restless pleasure-seekers, the good and the bad, the grave and the gay, all hurrying on in eager pursuit of the “show street” of the city, and certainly no more wonderful sight can be witnessed than this grand thoroughfare at high noon. As night comes on the great hotels, restaurants and business emporiums, send out a blaze of light, and are alive with visitors. The crowd is out for pleasure at night, and many and varied are the forms which the pursuit of it takes. Here is a family—father, mother and children—out for a stroll to see the sights they have witnessed a hundred times, and which never grow dull; there is a party of theatre-goers, bent on an evening of innocent amusement; here is a “gang of roughs,” swaggering along the sidewalks, jostling all who come within their way; here a party of young bloods, out on a lark, are drawing upon themselves the keen glances of the stalwart policeman, as he slowly follows them.
All sorts of people are out and the scene is enlivened beyond description. Moving rapidly through the throng, sometimes in couples, sometimes alone, and glancing swiftly and keenly at the men they pass, are a number of flashily-dressed women, generally young and prepossessing. One would never take them for respectable women, as they do not intend that you shall. These are the most degraded of the “lost sisterhood.” The men of the city shun them; their prey is the stranger, and should they succeed in attracting the attention of a victim they dart off down the first side street, and wait for their dupes to join them.
Woe to the man who follows after one of these creatures. The next step is to some of the low dives which still occupy too many of the so-called “hotels” in the business district or perchance to the back room of some pretentious saloon, where bad or drugged liquor steals away the senses of the luckless victim, and robbery or even worse violence, too often ends in the adventure. These women have gone so far down into the depth of sin, that they scruple at nothing which will bring them money.
The throng fills the street until a late hour of the night, then the theatres pour out their audiences to join in, and for an hour or more the restaurants and cafes are filled to their utmost capacity; then as midnight comes on, the street becomes quieter and more deserted. The lights in the buildings are extinguished, and gradually upper State Street becomes silent and deserted—Chicago has gone to bed.
Chicago Society
Good and Bad.