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Like many of the illustrations here, this one appeared in several different
publications, especially those that emphasized the more sensational aspects of
the fire. While some accounts praised the calmness of the populace, others
luxuriated in stories of Chicagoans, crazed by the fire, breaking into saloons
and sating themselves. In one variation, saloonkeepers, knowing that all will be
lost in any case, open their stores to all comers (there are similar stories
about other merchants, including jewelers, giving out their inventory to
passersby). In some versions of the stories of drinking, those maddened with
liquor prey on the weak and innocent. In more moralistic versions in this period
of ardent temperance reform, they lose consciousness and rightly perish in the
flames.
In a memoir prepared in 1892, the Reverend David Swing, whose Fourth
Presbyterian Church burned down in the fire and who later achieved great
popularity as minister to the Central Church, praised the orderliness and
dignity of the burnt-out, but added: "It would be more pleasant to write in the
name of this great event had the history no disgraceful page. But in the midst
of deserted saloons all kinds of liquors became free, and on Monday morning
drunkenness and stealing added to the misery of the spectacle. Young men and old
joined most recklessly in deeds of crime. In the south division, where great
efforts were being made to save valuable goods, there rushed to and fro men mad
with the prospect of stealing riches, and men mad with liquor, of all grades and
colors."
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Inside the Burning City 