Show TELEGRAPHIC A Produce Panic Chicago 16A season of extraordinary extraordin-ary excitement prevailed on Change I immediately after opening this morning by a rumor freely bandied about that the firm of McGoech Everingham Co who have for a long time been looked upon as the heaviest dealers in lard and other provisions on the Chicago board had failed This was verified in a measure meas-ure Boon afterward by a member of the firm circulating about on the floor of change and notifying all with whom they were interested in provision deals to close them out Something in the nature of a panic appeared to seize the provision corner and for a time interest in other trading was lost The effect was to be seen at once in the quotation of lard and July option which yesterday were up to 1137 > and closed steady at 1150 sold down to 1065 as the initial drop and kept on deecending the scale until 920 was reached which would be equal on point of comparison to the drop ot forty cents a bushel in wheat Other options felt the effect in a like manner but all in a measure somewhat recovered in tone and at 11 oclock the July option had gone back to 985 but subsequently again declined to 660 An effort to ascertain as-certain the extent to which McGoech had been operating failed both upon applica tion to the firm and members of the board of trade Thelhabilities of McGoechEveingham Co will be very heavy The failing market brought in its train plenty of rumors and other impending failures but up to 1130 there was nothing definite to report Membersof the broken firm declared to the associated press they would make no statement of any kind before tomorrow Peter fllcQeocb head of the firm is a resident of Milwaukee and is familiarly styled the Milwaukee milkman Ho is reputed to have been the leader in a number of daring bull movements on both the Milwaukee and Chicago markets and failed hero two years ago His firm came prominently before the public two weeks ago by their refusal to receive a large consignment of lard from Chicago on the ground that it was tainted and over which disputed fact an investigation on the board is now in progress The firm has since accepted the lard in question under protest Scenes of extraordinary excitement continued to the evening adjournment and while ihere were many free buyers of July option lard could not get above 980 and closed at 977as near as could be quoted A fair estimate appears to place the direct losses of McGeocb Everingham Co at 1000000 on lard An operator intimate with McGeoch in his late dealings declares the loss will approximate nearly 2000000 but that notwithstanding thip the broken firm professes pro-fesses its ability to make a good showing on a tettlement They assert their interests are so cloEely identified with other Heavy operators that they will be able to pay lOOc on the dollar judged from the present outlook I |