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HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS.
 
 
 
railway Franchise Law of the previous session, the provisions of which, empowering City Councils to grant street-railway franchises extending over a period of fifty years, had been severely criticised by a portion of the press and excited intense hostility, especially in some of the larger cities of the State.  Although in force nearly two years, not a single corporation had succeeded in obtaining a franchise under it.
A RETROSPECT AND A LOOK INTO THE FUTURE.- The history of Illinois has been traced concisely and in outline from the earliest period to the present time.  Previous to the visit of Joliet and Marquette, in 1673, as unknown as Central Africa, for a century it continued the hunting ground of savages and the home of wild animals common to the plains and forests of the Mississippi Valley.  The region brought under the influence of civilization, such as then existed, comprised a small area, scarcely larger than two ordinarily sized counties of the present day.  Thirteen years of nominal British control (1765-78) saw little change, except the exodus of a part of the old French population, who preferred Spanish to British rule.
The period of development began' with the occupation of Illinois by Clark in 1778.  That saw the "Illinois County," created for the government of the settlements northwest of the Ohio, expanded into five States, with an area of 250,000 square miles and a population, in 1890, of 13,500,000.  In 1880 the population of the State equaled that of the Thirteen Colonies at the close of the Revolution.  The eleventh State in the Union in this respect in 1850, in 1890 it had advanced to third rank.  With its unsurpassed fertility of soil, its inexhaustible supplies of fuel for manufacturing purposes, its system of railroads, surpassing in extent that of any other State, there is little risk in predicting that the next forty years will see it advanced to second, if not first rank, in both wealth and population.
But if the development of Illinois on material lines has been marvelous, its contributions to the Nation in philanthropists and educators, soldiers and statesmen, have rendered it conspicuous.  A long list of these