and
on the following Sunday it appeared in the New York Sun as an extract
from a London paper. As soon as the publication reached Chicago a
number of the cleverest reporters on the News staff were sent out to
interview the local literary authorities. They were all carefully
coached by Field what questions to ask and what points to avoid, and
their reports were all turned over to him to prepare for publication.
Next morning the better part of a page of the News was surrendered to
quotations from the fictitious article, with learned dissertations on
the value of the discovery, coupled with careful comparisons of the
style and sentiments of the verse with the acknowledged work of Watts.
In the whole city only one of those interviewed was saved, by a
sceptical analysis, from falling into the pit so adroitly prepared by
Field.

Loyal to Chicago, to a degree incomprehensible by those who judged his
sentiments by his unsparing comments on its crudities in social and
literary ways, he never ceased to get pleasure out of serio-comic
confounding of its business activities and artistic aspirations. Its
business men and enterprises were constantly referred to in his column
as equally strenuous in the pursuit of the almighty dollar and of the
higher intellectual life. In his view "Culture's Garland," from the
Chicago stand-point, was, indeed, a string of sausages. Of this spirit
the following, printed in December, 1890, is a good example:

A DANGER THAT THREATENS

The rivalry between the trade and the literary interests in Chicago
has been wondrously keen this year.

Prof. Potwins, the most eminent of our statisticians, figures that we
now have in the midst of us either a poet or an author to every
square yard within the corporate limits, and he estimates that in ten
years' time we shall have a literary output large enough to keep all
the rest of the world reading all the time.

Our trade has been increasing, too. Last September 382,098 cattle
were received, against 330,994 in September of 1889. So far this year
the increase over 1889 in the receipts of hogs is 2,000,000.

Last year not more than 2,700 young authors contributed stories to
the Christmas number of the Daily News: this year the number of
contributors reached 6,125.

Hitherto the rivalry between our trade and our literature has been
friendly to a degree. The packer has patronized the poet;
metaphorically speaking, the hog and