Chicago Sketches. by Ben Adam. Y. M. H. A.

About two years ago, a very warm and enthusiastic agitation for literary societies commenced to stir up the young men of the North Side, and they at once organized a society under the name of Y. M. H. A. The success and prosperity which they enjoyed in the first days of their existence, prompted some young people of the West Side to do likewise, and the Zion Lit. "became an established fact," and a short time afterward the Sinai and Progress, on the South Side, were organized, and they were followed by the members of the Standard Club, who instituted at their establishment the "alma mater of fashion, an extraordinary chair of literature and debate, and called the same "Literary Society."

For about a year these Literaries were all the rage with the young folks, they became absorbing topics of the day, but, alas, this did not last very 2long. The warm feelings for elevation and cultivation of the mind relaxed, subsided, and at last passed away like a cloud. The Y. M. H. A. was the first to give up its ghost, and on last Wednesday the Sinai Lit. followed them into the quiet waters of the Lethe.

At present we have here only three Literary Societies, the Zion on the West and the Standard and Progress on the South Side, and according to my judgement, the Zion alone stands today developed as an organization in full strength of a promising and useful existence.