streets--its handsome mercantile blocks, banks, and
business houses generally. Reasoning from cause to
effect, and seeing but a meager sprinkling of people
on the streets throughout the day, and these seeming,
for the most part, merely idlers, and in nowise
accessory to the evident thrift and opulence of their
surroundings, the observant stranger will be puzzled
at the situation. But when evening comes, and the
outlying foundries, sewing-machine, wagon, plow,
and other "works," together with the paper-mills and all the
nameless industries--when the operations
of all these are suspended for the day, and the
workmen and workwomen loosed from labor--then,
as this vast army suddenly invades and overflows
bridge, roadway, street and lane, the startled stranger
will fully comprehend the why and wherefore
of the city's high prosperity. And, once acquainted
with the people there, the fortunate sojourner will
find no ordinary culture and intelligence, and, as
certainly, he will meet with a social spirit and a
whole-souled heartiness that will make the place a
lasting memory. The town, too, is the home of
many world-known people, and a host of local
celebrities, the chief of which latter class I found,
during my stay there, in the person of Tommy Stafford,
or "The Wild Irishman" as everybody called
him.

"Talk of odd fellows and eccentric characters,"
said Major Blowney, my employer, one afternoon,