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January 26, iqor.
RECORD AND GmDE.
-J^
ESTABUSHED^ tf^RPH £IUA 1868.
Dented p RE^L Estmi . Builoi;/g A,RCi<rTECTin^ .t{ousEHou) DDjaufncni
BiJsii/ESs Alto Themes Of GetJer^I 1Nter.esi.
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PubUslted every Saturday.
TELEPHONE, CORTLANDT I37O.
Communications should be addressed to
C. W. SWEET. 14-lG Vesey Street.
/. r. LINDSEY, Business Manager.
'â– Entered at the Posl-Officc at New Y07% N. 7., as second-class matter,'
Vol. LXVII.
JANUARY 26, IBOl.
No. 1715.
The Index lo Vohime LXVI of the Record and Guide, covering the
period between July ist and December 31st, 1900, is now
ready for delivery. Price, $1. Tliis Index in its enlarged form
is nozv recogni::ed as indispensable to every one engaged or interested
in real estate and building operations.' Il covers all transactions—
deeds, mortgages, leases, auction sales, building plans filed, etc. Or^
ders for the Indcv should be sent al once to the office of publication,
14 and 16 Vesey Street.
T~\ ESPITE the occasional strength shown by the stock mar-
â– ^—^ ket, it is obvious that liquidation is going on systemat¬
ically and extensively, and that the bearish element ave he-
coming bolder from day to day. It looks, too, as if some very
large operators have overstayed their market and are wriggliiig
desperately to get out. This would explain why mythical deals
are "on" one day and "off" the next, but it does not explain
why there is still a public willing to swallow such tales, only
the gullibility of human nature does that. The withdrawal
of the large body of buyers from the market is seen in the
rapidly diminishing daily total of transactions. The export de¬
mand for gold, now become, quite heavy, does not appear to be
satisfied, but in our plentitude of resources this does not cut
much of a figure in the situation, except in so far as it indicates
the further return to us of our securities by Europe. What will
hasten and increase liquidation of speculative accounts in the
stock market, is the imminent increase in the demand for
money for mercantile and governmental purposes; already
these demands have shown themselves in fairly good propor¬
tions. An event that has a direct and serious influence upon
one class of securities, is the reduction in the dividend ou
Pressed Steel Car common, and the manner in which it was
brought about. Some weeks ago the story was in circulation
that the company had earned very large dividends upon both
classes of its stock, but all the time the stocks themselves were
pressed for sale. One day this week a statement was put out
showing about 9 per cent, earned in the year on the common
stock over and above 7 per cent, on the preferred, and on the
next the dividend was reduced from 1% per cent, to 1 per cent.
No financial report is issued so that it is impossible to learn
in What form the large profits said to have been earned are
carried. What can the public infer from this but that all
issues run as mysteries are best left severely alone. As this
is a sample of the way in which the Industrials are placed be¬
fore the public, it is not remarkable that securities that are
only reported to be earning large dividends without full cor¬
roborative figures and facts and which are openly manipu¬
lated, are on the counter for bargains in damaged and suspected
goods. With the growth of our industry and commerce, se¬
curities based upon those interests ought to be in good demand,
but who will recommend their purchase while so much secrecy
is observed as to their financial standing, and while they are
subject to such dangerous fluctuations in the market? All the
while it is probable that many of the Industrials are selling be¬
low intrinsic values in the hands of reliable managers, but no
one will take this for granted, nor should he. It is the man¬
agers who should make this clear.
TTOW rapidly European capital is drawing away from the
â– »â– -^ industries and collateral speculation is shown hy the ease
of money and the fact that the Continental banks did not fol¬
low the lead of the Bank of England in raising their discount
rates. Emphasis is given to this fact also by the way in which
the German State loans were this week promptly taken and
indeed over-subscribed. This confirms what we have said for
some weeks, that there is a good market for government loans
through the return of capital to ultra-conservative investm^ '
channels. It follows, however, that the American investor c^*^
only participate in these oft'erings on equal terms and tha^°"
although a very large amount in the aggregate will be askea^"
for by various governments this spring, no special inducements'
need be made for the pnniose of drawing capital from this
side of the Atlantic in order to keep home funds in trade. ^ c
the same time, the promptness with which Germany and r, ..^sia
have announced that, unlike Great Britain, they will exempt
foreign holdings of their bonds fi;om local taxation, shows a
disposition on their part to keep American investors among
the participants in their loans. The lay financial and trade
press of Europe all admit the collapse in business and the con¬
sequent decline in prices with the greatest frankness. The
fall in prices recalls the singular position taken by some Ger¬
man economists in the heyday of the boom, now a year or two
ago, and which time has proved to be insecure. Industrial
combinations had been extensively made and business had con¬
tinued good for some years with prices well maintained. Tak-'
ing the two last facts to be the result of the first, it was argued
that the combinations had the power to and would hold pro¬
duction at a parity with consumption and keep pi'ices upon an
even basis. Now that price reductions iu goods actually con¬
trolled by syndicates are generally reported, it is clear that this
argument was a mistaken one, and that the syndicates cannot
play the very important economic role assigned to them by
the theorists. Success would require a. hitherto unheardof
intimacy with the wants of the public, or perhaps the power
'to dictate them, as well as a combination so extensive as to
be impossible. Still, a full examination of the subject would
doubtless reveal that the combinations had had some success
iu prolonging activity and maintaining prices, because without
them competition would have been greater and the point of
over-production reached sooner than it was.
THE bill introduced into the Assembly to make it a mis¬
demeanor in cities of the flrst and second-class for anyone
to offer real property for sale or as security for a loan without
the authority of the owner of such property, differs in tone and
spirit from a similar bill introduced and supported by the Build¬
ers' League last year. That bill was stringent in its require¬
ments, providing that the agent should have written authority
to act; the present one leaves it undecided what the authori¬
ty should be—probably in the event of a dispute simply a ques¬
tion of credibility of the one side or the other. While last
year's bill did not meet with favor among brokers because of
its strictness, this year's bill fails to please the owners who first
agitated the matter by its laxness.
ATTENTION has been called during the past week to a
serious defect in the law under which papers filed in
the County Clei'k's office since Jan. 1, 1S94, have been indexed
on the block plan. It was an essential part of the general
scheme of block-indexing, devised by Mr. Dwight H. Olmstead,
that the block index under which papers were classified should
be an absolutely essential part of the record, in suchwise that a
lawyer searching a title could ignore the legal effect of any
papers which did not appear in the index. This distinguished
the block-index from the nominal index which was merely a
method of classification, and not by any means an essential part
of the record. All papers filed in the Register's olfice at the
present time are, of course, inde-xed on this block plan, and
so far as the papers already so indexed are concerned, no one
is obliged to go behind the index in order to find proofs of title.
But the law which provided for block indexing did not provide
for re-indexing papers previously recorded, and after the pass¬
age of the original bill for future block-indexing in the Regis¬
ter's office, Mr. Olmstead drew another bill both for future block-
indexing in the County Clerk's office and for the re-index¬
ing of papers already recorded both in the County Clerk's and
Register's offices. This bill was, however, opposed by inter¬
ested people, and it was so strongly opposed that Mr. Olmstead
dropped his original bill and substituted one in its place whicli
merely directed that the County Clerk should pi'epare suitable
index books for future block-indexing of all papers recorded iri
his office. The object of this bill was simply to get the sta¬
tionery ready against the time when tlie block-indexing of these
papers should be directed by the law and given the same legal
effect as in the Register's offiee. After Mr. Olmstead went
abroad, however, the. bill was modified so as to read that these
books were to be used for the block-indexing of papers filed in
the County Clerk's office after Jan. 1, 1894, but the bill was not
amended so as to give these indexes their proper legal effect.
The consequence is that all the papers recorded in the County