icinity in the last half-dozen years.

The candle factory of E. L. Schneider & Co., located on the corner of
Wallace and McGregor streets, Chicago, was Sunday swept away by fire.
The loss is $150,000, and the insurance $57,000.

The friends of Mr. Hintz, the unsuccessful candidate for postmaster at
Elgin, Illinois, threaten to defeat the re-election of Representative
Ellwood in the next campaign, who is held responsible for his defeat.

Two Irish members of the British Parliament, Matthew Arnold and P. J.
Sheridan,--the latter supposed to be the mysterious No. 1 of the
Phoenix Park assassination scheme--are in Chicago the present week.

Mrs. Dukes, a sister of the murdered Zura Burns, has left her home in
Dakota, in company with her father, to give what she claims is damaging
evidence against O. A. Carpenter, before the grand jury at Lincoln, Ill.

The matter of the final disposition of the assets of the estate of B. F.
Allen is being heard by a register at Des Moines. A firm which has
purchased a large share of the claims at 5 per cent offers $330,000 for
the property remaining, but other creditors hold out for $400,000.

Judge Shepard, in the Superior Court of Chicago, Saturday, dismissed
three bills for divorce, holding that when a wife separated from her
husband her residence as well as her domicile follows his, and that the
Illinois statutes excludes from its courts all suits for divorce in
behalf of persons not legal residents.

The Onondaga (New York) Indians have held another council, at which it
was shown that a majority of the nation is opposed to dividing the lands
in severally, but is willing to agree to a division of such timber lands
as can not be protected against depredations. The Christian party is to
be represented at the next conference with the State commissioners.

Nearly one-fourth of the business portion of Leipsic, O., was burned
Friday night, and flames swept away 1,145 bales of cotton at Murrell's
Point, La., and twenty-one buildings at Lowell, Mich. A boiler explosion
at Cincinnati, in the Corrugating company's manufactory, Saturday, led
to the destruction of $50,000 in property.

[Illustration]

MARKETS.

FINANCIAL AND COMMERCIAL.

OFFICE OF THE PRAIRIE FARMER.}
CHICAGO. Jan 22, 1884. }

Papers devoted to finance and trade inform us that the number of
business failures in 1883 was 9,184 against 8,782 in the hard times of
1877. The fear is, that the worst is not ye