One hundred and fifty thousand invitations had been issued, admitting the holders to the Manufactures Building; seats were provided for 120,000 persons, and every seat was occupied. The dedicatory exercises were perhaps the most imposing ever witnessed, and the enthusiasm was unbounded. The night jubilee consisted of the grandest display of fireworks that the world had ever seen. Three exhibitions were arranged to take place simultaneously in Washington Park on the south, Lincoln Park on the north, and Garfield Park on the west side, each display being a counterpart of the other, and the programs identical. It is estimated that more than half a million people were witnesses of the three displays, which were under the direction of James Pain & Sons.

The exhibition began shortly after eight o'clock with a discharge of 100 fifteen-inch maroons. These went blazing through the canopy of night to an altitude of 800 feet, where they exploded like a fiery eruption of the heavens and fell back in a thousand flaming streams. This beautiful effect was followed by a dazzling illumination of the parks with 500 prismatic lights. These were set off simultaneously by means of electricity, and changed colors five times, flooding the landscape with red, white and blue, and leaving an expiring tint of terra-cotta as a recognition of the newly adopted municipal colors of Chicago.

In each of the parks five bombshells, sixty inches in circumference, and of a weight of 110 pounds, were projected from mortars to an altitude of 700 feet, where they exploded with deafening detonations and filled the sky with a picture of fiery splendor. One of the most novel and interesting pieces in the display was representations of the American flag floating in the sky at a height of 2,000 feet! The flag was 300 feet in length and presented a design never before attempted in aerial work. It was attached to

a balloon, under the control of Professor Baldwin, the aeronaut, who carried it to the required altitude, and then lighted the fuse connected with the flag. A marvelous thing followed. Almost instantly the banner spread itself like a canopy, and taking fire, burned for five minutes with all its colors intensified, thus affording a spectacle of grandeur that had never been exceeded at any pyrotechnic exhibition.

There were several set fire-pieces upon which the best artists of the world had been engaged for many months. These produced original and magnificent effects. One of the pieces occupied 2,000 square feet of space and bore the inscription in flame: "Chicago Welcomes the Nations of the Earth-1492-1892." This flaming legend was supported by two fiery eagles, and above them was a similitude of the prominent Columbian Exposition buildings.

This was

The next set piece covered 2,500 square feet and presented in fire the sailing of Columbus from Palos. The fleet of three vessels, the Santa Maria, the Pinta and the Nina, was beautifully exhibited riding on a fiery sea. the largest piece ever shown in any pyrotechnic display. As a companion piece there was a fiery reproduction, on a similar scale, of the landing of Columbus on the island of San Salvador, representing him in the act of planting the standard of Ferdinand and Isabella in the presence of an awe-stricken group of Indians. Another piece showed Vesuvius in a state of eruption. It looked as if the center of the lake shore in front of the spectators' stand was a belching crater. When the volcano died out the flame spread along the plaza till it took the form of a forest fire. When the flaming trees had burned, the scene assumed the appearance of a prairie fire, the flames creeping along and licking the dust in every direction.

Then the mortar again shot up globes that burst and filled

the sky with showers of every hue. Thousands of people on the grand stand, in Lincoln Park, rose to take in the splendid view of the Grant monument. The bronze features of the General were never more brilliantly displayed than they were in the glory of that gorgeous illumination.

Five hundred four-pound colored rockets were fired simultaneously from three positions, blending continuously in varied tints. This was followed by the discharge from a mortar of fifty fifteen-inch shells, representing poppies in a cornfield. In the background appeared a nest of fiery cobras, that writhed against the sky. Three huge fountains of fire belched forth along the line. Shells burst to the left and right, representing Indian jugglery, prismatic torrents and Venetian national colors. For 400 feet along the plaza one ton of material lit up the waters of the lagoon with colored lights, while small pieces representing sheaves of wheat appeared at intervals.

A grand feature of the exhibition was the Columbian bouquet, produced by a discharge of 5,000 large rockets. This was followed by a silver fire wheel, over twenty feet in diameter, with intersecting centers. On each side of the wheel were two others which scattered circles of golden fire. For several minutes numerous small pieces occupied the attention of the spectators, representing swarms of fireflies, bouquets, star-spangled banners and fiery serpents. The last and grandest piece of the evening was a representation of Niagara Falls. A torrent of fire 400 feet long poured down from the top of a frame, a distance of fifty feet, mingling with the waters of the lagoon.

The dedication of the World's Fair proper was concluded on Friday, October 21st, but the presence of so many notables from all parts of the world, as well as the attendance of large bodies of the military, prompted the representatives of several States to seize the opportunity for making an

imposing dedication of the State buildings that were nearing completion. Programs were accordingly prepared for the formal opening of six of the Commonwealth buildings as an appropriate sequel to the general exercises of the week. Thus were the ceremonies of dedication concluded. The immense crowds of people that had come to Chicago from every point of the compass began to depart. The crowds. in the stations on Saturday night were very great, yet the accommodations appeared to be ample, as they had been in the city during the several days of the celebration. Every expression was a congratulation or plaudit for the magnificent sights the people had witnessed, and with which the nation had been inspired.

CHAPTER XLIX.

THE interval between the dedication of the buildings for the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago and the opening of that Exposition in the following May was filled with the presidential election, with the excitements conse. quent thereon, and with the change of administrations, on the 4th of March, 1893.

The victorious Democratic party again went into power, not only in the Executive Department, but in both branches of Congress. In the Senate, however, the majority of that party was so small and unstable as to make uncertain any measures other than those upon which there was complete harmony of opinion. President Cleveland went back to the White House with a tremendous support from the people at large, and only a modified support from his own party. He was committed to two lines of policy concerning which there was a marked want of concurrence with his views-to two principles which were destined to be the reefs on which his popularity and influence were to be shaken and virtually wrecked before the close of his administration.

The first of these was the policy of a reform in the tariff, which if carried out must needs lose him the support of all the manufacturing monopolies in the country. The second was his determined and sullen opposition to that system of bimetallic coinage which, from being the constitutional system and unvarying policy of the United States from the foundation of our government to 1873, had been broken down in the interest of the gold-producing nations, with