This company, whose rapid development and signal success have created a new manufacturing industry in Chicago, has just closed its first business year, and, while abundant evidence has been seen in our principal streets of the efficiency of its product in securing remarkable daylight interiors, probably few of the readers of The Economist are informed as to how this has been accomplished or who have been instrumental in bringing it about. The few who are interested and are stockholders in this company are among the most successful and aggressive business men of Chicago, among them being:

The aggregate of business executed during the past year has been upward of half a million dollars. Some 1,500 different installations have been made in nearly 100 different cities of the country.

The range of operations has been so extensive that all cities of importance have in them a number who have been quick to avail themselves of this opportunity to reduce their operating expenses and beautify their premises, and many, also, in the smaller places have secured the same benefits.

Among the more important contracts executed are the installations for B. Altman & Co. and Stern Bros., in New York; Sharpless Bros., in Philadelphia; Meldrum & Co, in Buffalo; Hull A Dutton. in Cleveland; Pettis Dry Goods Company, in Indianapolis: Hargadine, McKittrick, Simmons Hardware Company and the Cupples Wooden Ware Company, in St. Louis; D. H. Holmes, in New Orleans; the Emporium & Golden Rule Bazaar, in San Francisco; and Handel Bros., in Chicago, The installation in (his latter store was so successful that they were enabled to close up two light shafts which had been used formerly to give them light and have secured thereby some 800 square feet of additional floor space on the second and upper floors of their building. Those acquainted with the value of floor space of this portion of State street will appreciate the gain.

The manufacturing quarters occupied by the company during the year 1807 proved too small to meet the requirements of a growing business and allow for future expansions, and consequently early during the present year far more ample facilities for the execution of their contracts were secured at the corner of Elizabeth and Fulton streets on the West Side, where a six-story building is now used for the manufacturing operations and also for the general offices of the company.

The management of the company has been wise in protecting itself and covering all of its many important discoveries and devices by patents, of which it. holds a large number. Its wonderful growth has naturally been regarded with envious eyes by some who have been anxious, illegally, to profit themselves by the new industry which this company has developed, and they have appeared in the field with imitations of inferior merit, having the same form, which, it is charged, are fundamental infringements upon the rights which this company has secured through its patents. It is the purpose of the company to hold to a strict accountability all those who offer as manufacturers, or use as purchasers, any of the devices which it owns, and it will seek to protect its rights to the court of last resort.

At its annual meeting, held July 15, the following were elected directors:

Charles A. Wacker, C. H. Randle, Walter M. Anthony, W. R. Selleck, John M. Ewen, Leroy W. Fuller, William A. Illsley.

The executive officials are:

John M. Ewen, president; C. H. Randle, first vice-president; William A. Illsley, second vice-president and general manager; Leroy W. Fuller, secretary and treasurer.