Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 March 1898 — HAY TRUST FORMED. [ARTICLE]

HAY TRUST FORMED.

ORGANIZED WITH A CAPITAL OF $1,000,000. Composed of Over Forty-five Shippers •of Michigan, Ohio, Illinois and Indiana—The Officers to Be Chosen in March—Fire in Louisville. American Hay Company. The American Hay Company, incorporated under the laws of AVest Virginia, with a capital of $1,000,000, the bulk of which lias been subscribed for, was organized in Detroit, Mich. The head of the hay trust is P. A\\ I.ipc, who for six years has shipped the product out of Chicago. Officers will be elected at a meeting to be held at Toledo March 15. Thir-ty-two shippers were present and Mr. Lipe held the proxies of fourteen others. The headquarters of the trust will be at Buffalo, where the hay will be shipped, unloaded, graded, inspected and marketed. The combine comprises the wholesale shippers from the States of Michigan, Ohio, Illinois and Indiana, some 400 in number, controlling the shipment of from 150 to 200 cars a day. It is not expected that prices will materially advance until next season’s crop has been gathered. Transfer sheds will be built at Buffalo and depots will boA'stablished at Boston, New York and Philadelphia. For the present no effort will be made to control the market in Chicago or the West Holocaust at Charleston, S. C. Nine lives were lost in a fearful tenement house fire at Charleston, N. C. A police officer discovered llames, issuing from one of the windows on the first floor. The doors were broken open and the family on that floor was taken out without injury. Somebody cried out that a number of women were sleeping on the third floor. The police ran upstairs, and when they reached the top story the lifesaving work was stopped by the flames, which seemed to lie playing over the entire building. The cries of the imprisoned inmates nerved Patrolman Bogley to brave almost certain death. He wrapped his old coat about his head and dasliod through the wall of flame into the rooms on the third floor. Groping about blindlj* he stumbled over three bodies. Again be plunged through the fire bearing two of the corpses. When lie . endeavored to return he found the flooring burned away. Before anything could be done the joists gave way, carrying down six persons. 4The fire was soon under control and the bodies were recovered. Tobacco Burned nt Louisville. The big four-story plant of the National Tobacco works at Louisville, Ky., caught fire the other morning about 8 o’clock and the whole building was consumed. The plant covered an entire square and was filled with tobacco, which had been bought during the last six months. The total loss will be in the neighborhood of $2,000,000. Several persons were jnjured by the falling walls and many employes received injuries while attempting to eseai>e froni the burning building. The tiro originated^in the drying room. No cause is known other than spontaneous combustion.