AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN F. LACEY 389 



by there in the night, and stopped for a short time, where 

 I saw a few of the boys of my acquaintance. When I next 

 saw them it was 1875, and twenty years had elapsed with 

 all its vicissitudes. 



At Cincinnati, Ohio, we stopped for two days, which we 

 spent diligently seeing the city. Wm. Lacey, son of John 

 S. Lacey, of Cadiz, was living there and he visited us. 

 He was then in the wholesale grocery business in which 

 he made a large fortune but died comparatively young. 



I remember one particular thing at Cincinnati with 

 great distinctness. James and I went to see Hiram 

 Powers 's "Hell." Before Powers went to Italy 

 and carved the Greek Slave, he showed his first skill in 

 wax figures, and designed a museum in which he exhibited 

 his ideas of what the devil's realm would be. There was 

 a clashing of chains, a roaring of furnaces, diabolical 

 noises, and a variety of demons and condemned souls that 

 I can yet see in my memory. While standing at an iron 

 railing looking at the horrible vision, a charge of elec- 

 tricity went through the railing throwing us all on our 

 knees. A constant stream of visitors was passing through 

 the building and the electric shock seemed to be sufficient 

 to clear the way for more visitors. 



At Louisville, in going through the canal, we visited the 

 Kentucky giant, Porter. He had retired and was keeping 

 a public house near the canal. I wonder if he would seem 

 as large now, but he was surely a gigantic specimen, even 

 for Kentucky. 



At St. Louis we changed boats to the beautiful side- 

 wheeler, Thomas Swann, one of the old Wheeling and 

 Louisville Line, and she soon took us up to the Gate City 

 of Keokuk which was then in the height of its boom 

 period. The landing was crowded with people and goods 

 and it seemed like all the world was going to Iowa, or 

 I-owe-a, as we called it then. 



