A WILD IRISHMAN.
Not very many years ago the writer was for some months stationed at
South Bend, a thriving little city of northern Indiana, its main
population on the one side of the St. Joseph river, but quite a
respectable fraction thereof taking its industrial way to the opposite
shore, and there gaining an audience and a hearing in the rather
imposing growth and hurly-burly of its big manufactories, and the
consequent rapid appearance of multitudinous neat cottages, tenement
houses and business blocks. A stranger, entering South Bend proper on
any ordinary day, will be at some loss to account for its prosperous
appearance--its flagged and bowldered 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 no wise 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.
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