THE FISHERIES BUILDING, FROM ACROSS THE LAGOON.
Mr. Douglass, as soon as he saw what the Arabs were at, had climbed out of the car, and, more like a spider than a tutor, made his way to the axle, where he stood upright, walking backward upon the axle as the wheel ran forward. From this well-chosen perch, he could, and did, witness the ensuing scene—which was described by the Chicago reporters as “unusual.”
The Turkish village, being a trifle lumpy, diverted the wheel but little, and the next assault was upon the corner of the Panorama of the Alps. The end of the canvas became entangled in the wheel, and was stretched from one side to the other, so that subsequently many thought that there had been a land-slide when they saw the wheel pass.
Mr. Hagenbeck’s far-famed Animal Show also came in for a share of damage, the wheel crushing one corner of the menagerie, and picking up the small performing-bear in such a way that he was compelled to leap from car to car as each came upright, and walk the wheel as if it were a circus ball. He was rescued unhurt, but considerably fatigued, when the wheel finally—but it was not yet through.
Glancing to the other side of the Plaisance, the Libbey Glass Company was splintered into what one of the Irish dairymaids declared to be “smithereens,” and the monster rolled onward to where the International Dress and Costume Exhibit was situated. Here it broke in one side of the building, and then, catching sight of the contents, with a shriek from every cog fled into the Fair Grounds, cutting its way through the Illinois Central and Intramural bridges, with no more than slight crunches. The bear and Mr. Douglass were still walking their tread-mills, and the Panorama of the Alps still decorated a whole side of the wheel.
AT A DRINKING-FOUNTAIN.
But the great wheel, though out of temper, was not yet without feeling. It swerved aside upon reaching the Woman’s Building, plunged into the Lagoon, where, frightened by the squawking of the swans, it shot madly toward the Government Building. Probably it would have gone entirely through except for the fact that the Department of Justice lay directly in its course. It could not face the stern portraits of judges upon its walls, and, destroying only the big tree and a few other antiquities of slight importance, it encountered the Liberal Arts Building but slightly checked in speed.
Mr. Douglass was tired of his ride, and, from the bear’s growling, concluded that his fellow-passenger was also ready to stop.
“I wish,” said Mr. Douglass (never relaxing his backward walk), “that I had omitted this last visit to the Fair. It is rather exciting, but too wearisome after my long weeks of tramping. I am glad to see the Building of Manufactures ahead. The wheel may get through it, though I couldn’t; but it won’t go much farther.”