Costly Conflagration

Chicago, April 18.- Ona oL the fiercest and most disastrous fire3 zho Chicago dejartraent has íought íq many years swept chrough West Madi3oa streei yesterday afternoon The birf omytua building, that extends trom Unton fcalí way to rlalstead Btreet, was destroyed, and with t the conteats of Joba M. Smythe & Co.'s 'urniture house, the largest retall estabishmeat in the worla. All that i left of K.ohl & Middleton's ivest aide dima museum is a heap oL bricks and charred timbera. On the north side of Madison Btreet, from Union street to the Haymarfcet theatre block. five buildings were destroyed, Three of them tumbled down before the maelstrom of fire, and at one time the roof and a portion of the front of the theatre building was burning so fiercely that everybody thouglit it would share the f ate of its neioihbor. A Loss of About SI, 000,000. The flremen managed to save the structure in a seriously damaged condition. The total loss is estiinated at somathing les than $1,000,000. John M. Smythe and Co. alone will lose nearly $600,000. an extraordinary feature of the conflagration was thelackof fatalities. One man, Alexander Grant, had his legs broken and his skull fractured. A fireman was injured by a flying piece of mortar, and two or three spectators, who got inside the danger line, were hurt, but none of them so seriously thatthey were unableto go home unaided. The fire originated in the wagon shed of John M. Smythe & Co., directly in the rear of the museum.