Rue Madison

PREFATORY.

The undersigned Honorary Commissioners of the United States for the State of Illinois, to the International Exposition of Paris for 1878, appointed by the Président on nomination of his Excellency Grovernor S. M. Cullom, respectfully présent this description of the extent, history, character, resoiirces and civilization of their State.

The statements in this pamphlet are gathered from officiai sources as far as possible, and from the most récent authorities, and are believed to be trustworthy in character, and in most cases under the facts as they are to-day.

Few countries perhaps in ail the world are so loved and admired by their own people as this magnificent State of Illinois. Its history is full of romance. Its wonderful growth has been full of surprises. Its very atmosphère seems pregnant with inspiration, and its great sweeps of beautiful prairies seem to stimulate a corresponding breadth of views, purposes and enterprises. The energy and daring of its people hâve become almost proverbial throughout the Union. To many it seemed the extravagance of recklessness till its splendid and solid fruits gave évidence of its persistence and steady power. It has carried the State, within the lifetime of a single génération, from a territorial condition to the fourth place in a sisterhood of thirty-eight sovereign States, and it is almost certain that the census of 1880 will leave only New York and P£nnsylvania in its front in population, and none superior to it in wealth and power. With more miles of railroad than any other State; with the largest coal-field in the world; with an expanse of fertile soil in a single body unmatched upon the globe; with a commerce greater than that of any other inland State of the world ; with manufacturing powers and facilities which may challenge comparison in any land; with its manufactured products already

contesting the palm m the most distant markets of earth ; with its educational agencies and institutions, supported by princely revenues and achieving richer and richer results; with a people touched as with fire by the magnificence and promise of their surroundings; with a civilization of a type uniting the polish and refinement of the old with the freshness and vigor of the new, robust as the pioneers from which it caught its breath, but touched already by its love of art and taste; what must seem extravagant boastfulness to others, seems but sober, every-day fact and truth to its own citizens, who hâve seen its prairies blooming one décade with wild flowers, and blossoming, the next, with farms, villages and beautiful cities; and their great city, the magnificent queen of the lakes, one year in ashes and the next shining in new splendor, with an architecture richer, stronger and grander than the old.

The Commissioners hâve put their little ofifering in the French language, not merely out of compliment to the great people to whose Exposition it is dedicated, but also for the conveniehce of the great majority of the readers to whom it is presented.