domes of white blossoms where swelled the white tent;
There were ploughs in the track where the war-wagons went;
There were songs where they lifted up Rachel's lament."

October 8, 1871, occurred the great fire in Chicago, raging for
forty-eight hours and devastating three thousand acres of the city.
Twenty-five thousand buildings were burned, and two hundred million
dollars' worth of property. One hundred thousand people lost their
houses, and over seven and one-half millions of dollars were raised for
those who needed it, all parts of the world uniting to improve the
joyful opportunity to do good, without a doubt of its hearty
appreciation.

Boston also had a seventy-million dollar fire in the heart of the
wholesale trade, covering sixty acres; and in the prairie and woods
fires of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan, many people lost not only
their homes but their lives. Fifteen hundred people perished in
Wisconsin alone.

In 1871 the damage done by the Alabama, a British-built ship, and
several other cruisers sent out partly to facilitate the cotton trade
and partly to do a little fighting when a Federal vessel came that way,
was assessed at fifteen million five hundred thousand dollars against
Great Britain by the arbitrators who met at Geneva, Switzerland, and the
northwestern boundary line between the United States and British America
was settled by arbitration, the Emperor of Germany acting as arbitrator
and deciding in favor of America.

This showed that people who have just wound up a big war have often
learned some valuable sense; not two billion dollars' worth, perhaps,
but some.

San Domingo was reported for sale, and a committee looked at it, priced
it, etc., but Congress decided not to buy it.

The Liberal Republican party, or that element of the original party
which was opposed to the administration, nominated Horace Greeley, of
New York, while the old party renominated General Grant for the term to
succeed himself. The latter was elected, and Mr. Greeley did not long
survive his defeat.

The Modoc Indians broke loose in the early part of Grant's second term,
and, leaping from their lava-beds early in the morning, Shacknasty Jim
and other unlaundried children of the forest raised merry future
punishment, and the government, always kind, always loving and sweet
toward the red brother, sent a peace commission with popcorn balls
and a gentle-voiced parson to tell Shacknasty James and Old
Stand-