the people's man, and boasted of it boldly when election
day came. The packers had wanted a bridge at Ashland
Avenue, but they had not been able to get it till they had
seen Scully; and it was the same with "Bubbly Creek,"
which the city had threatened to make the packers cover
over, till Scully had come to their aid. "Bubbly Creek"
is an arm of the Chicago River, and forms the southern
boundary of the yards; all the drainage of the square mile
of packing-houses empties into it, so that it is really a great
open sewer a hundred or two feet wide. One long arm of
it is blind, and the filth stays there forever and a day.
The grease and chemicals that are poured into it undergo
all sorts of strange transformations, which are the cause
of its name; it is constantly in motion, as if huge fish were
feeding in it, or great leviathans disporting themselves in
its depths. Bubbles of carbonic acid gas will rise to the
surface and burst, and make rings two or three feet wide.
Here and there the grease and filth have caked solid, and
the creek looks like a bed of lava; chickens walk about on
it, feeding, and many times an unwary stranger has started
to stroll across, and vanished temporarily. The packers
used to leave the creek that way, till every now and then
the surface would catch on fire and burn furiously, and
the fire department would have to come and put it out.
Once, however, an ingenious stranger came and started to
gather this filth in scows, to make lard out of; then the
packers took the cue, and got out an injunction to stop
him, and afterwards gathered it themselves. The banks
of "Bubbly Creek" are plastered thick with hairs, and
this also the packers gather and clean.

And there were things even stranger than this, accord~
ing to the gossip of the men. The packers had secret
mains, through which they stole billions of gallons of
the city's water. The newspapers had been full of this
scandal -- once there had even been an investigation, and
an actual uncovering of the pipes; but nobody had been
punished, and the thing went right on. And then there
was the condemned meat industry, with its endless hor~
rors. The people of Chicago saw the government in~

[[112]]

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