In reviewing my visit to Memphis I find myself, for once, kindly disposed toward a Chamber of Commerce and Business Men’s Club.  I like the Business Men’s Club because, besides issuing pamphlets shrieking the glory of the city, it has found time to do things much more worth while—­notably to bring to Memphis some of the great American orchestras.

A pamphlet issued by these organizations tells me that Memphis is the largest cotton market in the country, the largest hardwood producing market, the third largest grocery and jobbing market.

Cotton is, indeed, much in evidence in the city.  The streets in some sections are full of strange little two-wheel drays, upon which three bales are carried, and which display, in combination, those three southern things having such perfect artistic affinity:  the negro, the mule, and the cotton bale.  The vast modern cotton warehouses on the outskirts of the city cover many acres of ground, and with their gravity system of distribution for cotton bales, and their hydraulic compresses in which the bales are squeezed to minimum size, to the accompaniment of negro chants, are exceedingly interesting.

The same pamphlet speaks also of the unusually large proportion of the city’s area which is given over to parks and playgrounds, and it seems worth adding that though Memphis follows the general southern custom of barring negroes—­excepting, of course, nursemaids in charge of children—­from her parks, she has been so just as to provide a park for negroes only.  In this she stands ahead of most other southern cities.

Memphis has the only bridge crossing the Mississippi below the mouth of the Ohio.  At the time of our visit a new bridge was being built very near the old one, and an interesting experience of our trip was our visit to this bridge, under the guidance of Mr. M.B.  Case, a young engineer in charge.

On a great undertaking, such as this one, where the total cost mounts into millions, the first work done is not on the proposed bridge itself, but on the plant and equipment to be used in construction—­derricks, barges, concrete-mixers, air compressors for the caissons, small engines, dump-cars and all manner of like things.  This preparatory work consumes some months.  Caissons are then sunk far down beneath the river bed.  Caisson work is dangerous, and the insurance rate on “sand hogs”—­the men who work in the caissons—­is very high.  The scale of wages, and of time, varies in proportion to the risk, which is according to the depth at which work is being done.  On this enterprise, for example, men working from mean level to a depth of 50 feet received $3 for an eight-hour day.  From 50 to 70 feet they worked but six hours and received $3.75.  From 90 to 105 feet they worked in three shifts of one hour each, and received $4.25.  And while they were placing concrete to seal the working chamber there was an additional allowance of fifty cents a day.