THE CHICAGO DRAINAGE CANAL.
A dispatch from Washington, D. C., states that the reply of the Illinois and the Chicago sanitary district to Missouri has been filed in the United States Supreme court. This completes the record in the case that will settle the question whether the drainage canal has ruined the drinking water at St. Louis or improved it, as the attorneys for the drainage board claim. The final argument will be heard by the Supreme court some time after January 2. This litigation has been dragging in the courts for years, and was begun by injunction proceedings on the part of Missouri shortly after the canal was opened. The defence set up bv Illinois is that Missouri is not entitled to the relief asked, because the evidence submitted is not “determinate and satisfactory,” as required by the court in a previous ruling on a demurrer in the same case. It further asserts that all testimony in the case shows that the sanitary condition of the Illinois river has been better since the canal was opened, and that typhoid bacilli introduced from the sewers of Chicago die long before reaching towns in Missouri.
Utica, N. Y., has a new fire engine house, No. 6. Its accommodations are for a double crew, steamer and hook and ladder. Each company is divided from the other by a party wall—making practically two houses.