A seal was discovered in the track of the steamer Armstrong, at Morristown, N. Y., on the St. Lawrence river. This was the third or fourth seal seen in that vicinity 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 yet come, but this feeling happily is not by any means universal among most far seeing business men. The transactions at the Chicago banks were a trifle slower than last week. The regular loan market was quotable on Monday at 6@7 per cent. Eastern exchange was firm at 60c per $1,000.