Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 June 1895 — HEAVY LOSS BY FIRE. [ARTICLE]

HEAVY LOSS BY FIRE.

ALL SOUTH CHICAGO WAS IN DANGER. T _ Railroad Commission Gives the Windy City a Fine Lift-Last Year’s Output of Fruit —A, R. U. Leaders Must Serve Their Time. Bouth Chicago Blaze. The entire business district of South Chicago was threatened, with destruction by fire that started at 11:30 o’clock Monday night in the furniture store of Peter Young. Before the flames were gotten under control ten buildings were laid in ashes. The damage will reach about $200,000. The fire started in the rear of Young's furniture store, right in the heart of the business district. It spread west, destroying six buildings,- and the flames shifted north, laying four more buildings in ashes. Twenty minutes after the fire broke out the flames attacked the big department store of C. S'. Cave. This is the largest store in the town. The firemen fought the blaze at this point and succeeded in saving the structure, but the loss from water will be several thousand dollars. Fruit Crop of 1894. The review of the frutf'eondition oUHrecountry for 1894 by the pomologist of the Agricultural Department is printed for the first time in the year book now almost completed. It characterizes the season as peculiarly disastrous and unprofitable in most lines' of fruit culture. In the East and South the result was largely due to unfavorable climatic conditions. Fair fruit crops were harvested, however, in the New England, middle Atlantic and lake States and in portions of Missouri, "Kansas and Nebraska. West of the Rocky Mountains there was an abundant yield, but losses due to the paralysis of freight traffic during the railroad strikes in June and July, together with the low prices caused by the prevailing industrial depression, resulted in very low net returns to the growers and shippers of that region. The year was characterized by exceptional extremes of heat and cold, drought and moisture in different sections. The average value of apples per barrel exported was about,2o per cent less than in 1893, and exports of dried apples showed an increase of but 5 per cent over those in 1593, in which year exports were smaller than during any year since 1878. Peaches were almost a total failure in the commercial" peach districts of the South, except in Florida and Texas. Big Boon to Trade. Chicago merchants have just been given at least $7,000,000 of additional trade annually by the railroad and warehouse commission. Merchants in jobbing centers in Illinois other than Chicago will benefit proportionately by the same gift and to the extent of at Yeast $3,000,000. This enormous increase of trade to Illinois merchants comes through the decision of the State commission to establish between all Illinois points as low a mileage basis of rates as is quoted to them from points outside the State. In other words, the commission is now printing its revised classification which will remove from Chicago and other Illinois merchants the onerous exactions in freight rates which have turned over the jobbing trade within the State to merchants in Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Detroit, Toledo; Cleveland, etc. Debsto Return to Jail. Eugene V. Debs find his associate officers of the American Railway Union will return to the Woodstock, 111., jail. Monday the certified copy of the order of the Supreme Court was received by S. W. Burnham, clerk of the United States District Court, and the marshal was notified to return the men to the jail. The men who are affected by the order are: Eugene V. Debs, George W. Howard, Sylvester Keliher, L. W. Rogers, James Hogan, William E. Burns, Roy M. Goodwin, Martin J. Elliott. George W. Howard, the former vice-president of the union and nSw theexecutive officer of the American Industrial Union, which is a rival organization, desired to bo sent to some county jail in Indiana. Bbe Purloins While the Boy Weeps. Chicago police arrested Mrs. Loue with silks and clothing she had taken at L. Klein & Co.’s store. With her was Michael Masterson, 9 years old, who had evidently been trained as an accomplice. When the woman had all the plunder she could carry at any one place the boy was signaled to set up a piteous cry, which diverted the attention of l>y-standers and enabled Mrs. Loue to sneak out. This was his story. Both were held. Capt. Blackburn Drowned. George Richards, of Milwaukee, mate of the schooner Mabel Wilson, has received a dispat-ch from a son of Captain Blackburn, at Oswego, announcing the foundering of a yacht and the loss of his father and three others. Captain Blackburn was an old lake vessel master and once commanded the schooners West Side, J. E. Gilmore and Dan Lyons.