in manufacturing enterprises-and these had succumbed in many instances to the power of monopolies, or to the tariff of freight which took off all the profits, and her more eastern competitors were the gainers. But in the last two years Nature's great highway to the sea has begun to be utilized and St. Louis has all at once opened her eyes to the fact that she has a free railway of water to the sea, the equal of twenty railroads by land, and it only needs the cars (the barges) to revolutionize the carrying trade of the Mississippi and Missouri valleys. The track is free to all. He who can build the cars can have the track ready at all times for use. The Father of Waters lies at her door; a mountain of iron is but a few miles away; coal, also, lies nearly at her gates, and while she has slept the sleep of years, these vast opportunities might have made her, ere this, the equal of any manufacturing city on the globe. She will become such, for no other city can show such vast resources or such rapid and cheap facilities for distribution. Even the coupon-clippers are waking up and believe there are higher and nobler aims for man than the lavish expenditure of wealth in indolence and selfish pleasure. The surplus wealth of St. Louis, if invested in manufacturing enterprises, would make her the wonder of the continent. She may realize this some day-when she does, will wonder at the stupidity and folly that has controlled her for so many years. Foundries, machine-shops, rolling-mills, cotton and woolen factories, car-shops, these and a thousand other industries are but waiting for the magic touch of an enterprising people to give them life.

The year 1881 opens auspiciously for a new life. St. Louis now begins to consider the question of progress from a more enlightened standpoint, and with a look of intelligent action. It may take a little time yet to drive sleep from her eyelids and sloth from her limbs, but it looks now more than ever as though she would accomplish this and wake up to the full fruition of her great opportunities-in fact, to her manifest destiny. Missouri ought to be proud of St. Louis, but that cannot be while sloth lies at the portals of her gates and the dry-rot of old fogyism guides her present course.

The brewery business of St. Louis is one of her leading departments of trade. She has the largest establishment in the world for bottling beer, a building two hundred feet long and thirty feet broad. The manufacture of wine is another important business which has assumed immense proportions. Distilling, rectifying and wholesale dealing in liquors is another branch that adds a large revenue to the taxable wealth of the city. There is nothing in the manufacturers' line but what could sustain a healthy growth in St. Louis, if even plain business sense is at command. Her future may be said to be all before her, for her manufacturing interests are yet in their infancy. She can become the manufacturing center of the continent. The center or receiving point for the greatest amount of cereals any city can handle, and the stock center also of the country, St. Louis may, with the opportunities within her grasp, well be called the "Future Great."

CHAPTER OF CRITICISM

But the name "Future Great" is used at this time by her rivals in tones of derision. That she should have ignored so many years the great and bountiful resources nature has so lavishly bestowed upon her, aye! it would seem, even spurned them through an ignorance as dense as it is wonderful, is very strange, and has brought a stigma of disgrace upon the character of her people. This action on her part has not escaped the notice of men of wealth, of towering ambition, of nerve force and of unlimited energy, and to-day one of the railway kings of the country, Jay Gould, of New York, has grasped the scepter of her commercial life and rules with a grasp of steel, and through his iron roadways run the commercial life-blood which flows through the arteries of her business life. That this neglect of her great opportunities should have placed it in the power of one man to become the arbiter of her fate is as humiliating as it has proved costly. Millions have poured into the coffers of Jay Gould, who, seeing this vast wealth of resources lying idle or uncared for, had the nerve to seize and the far-seeing judgment and enterprise to add them to his own personal gains The world can admire the bold energy of the man, and the genius that can grasp and guide the commercial destinies of an Empire, but it is none the less a blot upon the fair name, capital and enterprise of a great city, and should mantle the cheek of every St. Louisian with shame. The writer feels all that he has here written, but his pride as a Missourian cannot blind him to the faults of her people.

St. Louis is an old city and there has been much written of her extraordinary progress, and yet whatever that progress is, has been caused far far more by her people being compelled to take advantage of the opportunities within their reach than making such by their own energy and enterprise. If she has grown in population and in wealth, it is because she could not help herself. After forty years of life, as late as 1812, the currency of St. Louis was still confined to peltries, trinkets, maple sugar, honey, bees wax, venison, hams, etc., in fact, all barter and trade, and yet those who have compiled her local history talk wildly of her destiny and prophesy wonders for her in the near future. It is best to look at St. Louis as she is to-day. It is to be hoped that her future growth may not take pattern after her past, and that the new men who have taken her commercial future into their keeping will still exhibit that towering genius for the development of St. Louis that has characterized them in their eastern home.

The future of St. Louis would seem to be one of a rapidly growing city, not only in population, but in commercial and financial strength as though founded upon a rock. This is the present outlook. While the genius of Gould and his associates has secured millions of dollars by their business

ventures, there are other millions still left to build up and add to her pros. perity and greatness if rightly managed.

The tremendous energy of Gould has astonished the sleepy St. Louisians as much as if they had been treading upon live coals, and in waking up they have discovered that their sleep and indolence have cost them several millions. Gould, Keene, Dillon, Sage and their associates do not work for nothing, and the people who claim the "Future Great" as their abiding place should lose no time in taking a firm hold of the present and guiding her toward the great destiny which awaits her, with the winning cards in their own hands. The New Yorkers have shown them a will and a way, and now let them practice the lesson it has cost them so much to learn.

It has been over a century since St. Louis took a start into life, and it is quite that since the ring of the pioneer's ax and the sharp crack of his rifle reverberated through her streets. The slow progress of pioneer life has departed and modern civilization, with the light of genius for its guide, is rapidly progressing and recording history for future generations. When in 1817 the first steamboat landed at St. Louis, the possibilities of what the future might be began to dawn upon the minds of her people, and that year may be well proclaimed as the dividing line between the old and the new era of St. Louis's destiny. From that day she looked forward, not backward, and while up to that time she seemed to have lived in the past, it was the future before her that then riveted her attention. She kept up a lively step to the music of progress for several years, and the Father of Waters and the mighty Missouri with their fleets of water-craft attested her enterprise, and she grew apace. But in a few years she again fell asleep, and slept until the snort of the iron horse awoke her rudely from slumber. She had grown even while she slept, because the great water-way which passed her door had become the pathway of a mighty business. But this grand highway to the sea which had nourished her while she slept was at once forgotten or relegated to the rear, and her awakened energies were given to the prancing steed whose breath was fire, that made the earth tremble at his strength, and whose speed was like the wings of the wind. The railroad fever had taken possession of the Queen City of the Valley. She grew apace and for years she has reveled in the new love, and the grand old Father of Waters which had nurtured her into life was forgotten. But she has again awakened from her quiet dreams, and the iron horse which had lulled her to repose was found while bringing millions to her door to have taken millions more away. And in this year of 1881 she opens her eyes to her true destiny, and the grand Old Father of Waters, which she had striven to drive from her, was once more recognized as the very foundation or bed-rock of her commercial life, the power that was to keep in check the absorption of her wealth, from the monopolizing influence and insatiable maw of the railway kings. She now proudly points to the grand old river, and the fleets of barges borne upon its bosom

filled with the wealth of an empire, and calls on her sister, Chicago, to look at this glorious sight. The "Garden City" has already snuffed the battle from afar, and is ready to struggle for a commercial supremacy in which there are literally millions, for nature has done the work, and St. Louis will win. The "City by the Lake" is deserving, and had she the opportunities which have lain so long dormant in possession of her rival, would have been to-day the wonder of the world. But it is the rugged path that brings out man's energy and endurance, not the smooth road. So it is with cities. And so the majestic Mississippi flows on, bearing upon its waters the riches of the valley, and pouring into the lap of the Queen City upon its banks millions upon millions of wealth. If the spirit of 1881 shall continue, then St. Louis will soon become the pride of the State. In reality she will be the "Future Great" of the American Continent. She that stands on the bank of this great inland sea, the commerce of an empire flowing at her feet, her sails in every clime and country, she is indeed to become a great city, the arbiter of the commercial world and the Queen City whose wealth, commanding influence, culture and refinement will attest the greatness of her people and command the homage of the world. Such is to be the "Future Great" city, St. Louis.

STATISTICS.

Debt of St. Louis, January 1, 1881, $22,507,000; rate of taxation on the $100, $1.75.

The receipts of all kinds of grain, 51,958,177 bushels.

Twenty-four flouring-mills manufactured 2,077,625 barrels of flour in

1880.

The receipts of cotton for 1880 were 496,570 bales.

There were 12,846,169 pounds of tobacco manufactured into plug, fine-cut and smoking tobacco.

There were 330,935,973 feet of lumber received in 1880.

St. Louis received for the year 1880, 41,892,356 bushels of coal.

Seven elevators have a total capacity of 5,650,000 bushels, and three more are being erected and one other enlarged.

The aggregate of bank clearing for 1880 amounted to $1,422,918,978. The post-office distributed in 1880, 43,731,844 pieces, weighing 4,250,000 pounds.

Post-office orders issued numbered 53,337, and represented $879,943.90. The value of school property is $2,851,133.

The steel bridge cost $13,000,000 and tunnel $1,500,000.

HISTORY OF KANSAS CITY.

KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI.

A Sketch-The New Life-Its First Settlement--Steamboat Events from 1840 to 1846-Mexican War-Santa Fe Trade-Railroads-Commercial Advancement-Stock MarketPork-packing-Elevators and Grain Receipts-Coal Receipts-Buildings-Railroad Changes-Banks-Newspapers-Churches-Secret Societies--Public Schools-Manufacturing Center-Her Position and Trade-Assessed Valuation-Close.

A short description of the rise and progress of Kansas City, the great metropolis of the Missouri Valley, may be of interest to the people of this section. It is the wonder of the people of the East, as of the West, that in the last fifteen years 75,000 people should have made it their home, and that upon the rugged hills and deep ravines which are found upon the banks of the Missouri River at the mouth of the Kaw, should become the site of a mighty commercial emporium, and that the second city of the State should be found rising in stately magnificence where, but a few years since, fur-traders and trappers made their home. Within the corporate limits of Kansas City, in the year 1881, fully 70,000 people are found, while in the suburbs fully 5,000 more are located. When the city of Wyandotte is added, and that of Independence and Westport, and other small towns, we have, within a very short distance, 100,000 people to advance the glory, the growing power and the material prosperity of one of the most thriving cities on this Western Continent-a city that every Missourian can be proud of, and can point to with honest exultation at her rapidly growing power, and the expansion of her environs. It is that city, within one hundred miles, which Western Missouri can look to as a market, and where she will in the near future look for her commercial emporium. Already the wholesale trade rivals in many branches that of St. Louis, and five years hence she will be the second cattle and hog market of the country. With a barge line in operation to St. Louis, it will be found the best market for cereals, and already cattle and hogs can be sold there at St. Louis prices, with less than half the freight charges. While St. Louis will ever be the metropolis of the State and the Mississippi Valley, Kansas City equally assumes the proud position of the metropolis of the Missouri Valley, and the largest city that will ever be found this side of the mountains, west of the

Father of Waters.