668





Record   and   Guide.





ApriUe IStS.





''' ads." It is hard to believe that there is lasting salvation even in
these undoubtedly powerful aids to " journalism." Certainly
decent people will deeply regret the hard fate which has driven the
Times from its old anchorage.

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IT is not in the least likely that the wishes of property-owners
_ will be observed in reference to the so-called " Elm Street
Improvement" bill, Tbe city authorities apparently are determined
to pass it. They have already railroaded it through the Assem¬
bly. Our autocratic governors are poor respecters of public opinion.
We have pointed out before in these columns that there is no real
need at present for this radical, far reaching measure. It is possible
to open Elm street without it, and surely that improvement can be
expedited without passing a law that affects all real estate in tbe
city, and without over-riding in a despotic manner the undoubted
rights of property-owners ; rights, by the way, which do not clash
wTth the paramount rights of the city. It does not seem to us to be
either necessary or just to summarily deprive people of their houses
and land, and leave the adjustment of awards to be settled at some
future indeftuite time. The whole proceeding savors of Russian
autocracy. Surely the right of eminent domain does not imply the
right to take a man's property away from him before it has been
paid for. If thia bill should be passed property-owners should
make a vigorous effort to obtain the Governor's veto.
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The Oomiog Chief Oity.
-w-S New York to remain the leading city of the Continent, or is it
X   fated to suffer an eclipse ana be relegated to third or fourth
place among its ambitious and pushing competitors?

To the average New Yorker the question may sound foolish.
True, a tremor passed through the metropolis when the late phe¬
nomenal census-taking was done in l>hicago ; and there are many
signs that Brooklyn, or rather Kings County, is doubling on us in
the ratio of increase in population. But the New Yorker is confi¬
dent. He was bred to believe that the city could have no rival on
the Western Hemisphere, and it is hard to overcome the tffects of
early training, Lf Chicago threatens, he will annex Brooklyn, and
if Brooklyn resists, wby, then, he will put all the resources of the
city into rapid transit and push out for the north pole in search for
a place to deposit the unnumbered millions who are to form the
future population of New York.

This is plucky ; but let it be said right here that rapid transit is
a very dangerous dependence. Observe the throes in which rapid
transit is ever conceived in New York ; and tben remember that
people are darting all over Kings County without auy undue
crowding on electric, surface and elevated railways, and not
even dreaming thatrapid transit is a hard thing to get. Every
rapid transit facility tiaat can be offered in New York can be
duplicated in Kings County at half cost. Over iu Jersey, too,
they can jump a five mile broad salt meadow and reach home
while we are clearing away obstacles preliminary to a start. It
is easy to have rapid transit where there is plenty of room; but it
will be found impossible to have anything approaching the perfec¬
tion of rapid transit without deadly peril to life and limb where
crowds are too great and space is lacking. How then is rapid
transit tc secure the future of New York? It will never save the
city from being first rivaled and then distanced in the race for
population by at least two secdons of the metropolitan district—
Kings County and the territory in New Jersey adjacent to  New

York.

How, too, about Chicago? The people of that city tell us already
that they are going to have a more populous city than New York,
and if they do not count themselves ahead when the very next
Federal census is taken, it will not be for lack of accomplishments
in figures. Besides, Chicago is to a very greafc extent the metropo¬
lis of the future growth of the country. It is Chicago, not New
Yerk that will be in immediate touch with what is sure, in time,
to be the greater balf of the nation. The Chicagoan also bas
already demonstrated more ability at city-making than has yet been
seen in the world. The only danger is the remote possibility that
Chicago may lose some of her wind and be forced to a considerable
reduction in pace. C.bicago was made by the great lakes, and they
have made several other cities of great expectations, only to meas¬
urably fail them when their hopes were highest.

But there is no visible cloud obscuring the future of Kings
Couuty or New Jersey, and New York seems even determined to
help" them in taking the wind from her own sails in order that one
or botb may win in the race for the leading metropolitan position.
Witness the proposal of the NewYork Dock Department to buy
tbe Pennsylvania Railroad off the water front, and to furnish the
money that will enable its managers to make heaps of terminal
improvements in Bayonne without any sacrifice of dividends,. We
are aii exceedingly astute people in New York ; but our astuteness
seems to have retained many of the charactei-istics commeniorated
by Wasbihgtbn Irving in his history of the Knickerbockers.

Itiselear enough that we have reached a turning point in our
career - and if we expect- to remain the leading city on ^iJe continent.





we must hold our position by maintaining the commercial advan¬
tages that originally gave us the lead. Yet we are deliberately
throwing them away. We are absolutely banishing our commerce
from tbe city by making its operations too expensive to be profit¬
ably conducted, and dreaming all the time that we must remain
the leading city in the continent because we have been the leading
city in the past. Let us have rapid transit by all means. It will
help us a little in filling up the waste places at the north end of
thecity, but it will not avert the ruin that has already come to
some of the finest sections of the south end. At the prevailing
ratio of increase in the three communities both Kings County and
Chicago will pass us in about twenty years. But both Kings County
and Chicago are rapidly increasing their ratio when compared with
New York,

Investments.—G-ood and Bad.
The New York, Susquehanaa Sc Western ^stockholders are soon to be
informed by circular wbat the management intends by its proposal to con¬
solidate witb the Hudsou River Terminal and Railway Company,     Mean¬
time it may be said tbat of the $5,000,000 additional preferred stock that
the issues cf the consolidated company will embrace   $l,ti 0,000 will be
used to extinguish the cumulative-dividend right of the present preferred
stock, $1,000,000  to  take in the Hudson   River  Terminal and Railway
Company, and t2,4t)0,[KHl reserved for taking in the Wilkesbarre and East¬
ern uow building.    What the circular will not answer is the more import¬
ant question of   what all the terminal work   tbat   is being done is for.'
It seems hardly credible that so mucb capital is beiug spent to provide
terminals   for   a  property whose   business   now   amounts   to   less   than
^3,000,010   a   year,     and   which     wben     the    Wilkesbarre     extension
is completed will be less than 300 miles long.   Tbe circumstances of the'
property are these: It now runs from a poiut two and a-half miles outside
of Jersey City to Gravel Place, Pa.   I's passengers and freight, except c;al.
are carried into Jersey City over the Pennsylvania and its coal to Hoboken
by the Lackawanna.   It has a short spur to the MacDpin Lake iron region
and a longer one to Middletown, K. Y., connecticg with tbe Hew York,
Ontario & Western and tbe Erie.   The company bas lands in the Scranton
coal fields and to reach these it uses tbe Lackawanna from Gravel Place to
Scranton,    Tbe improvements and  extensions now being made will give
the Susquehanna a clear run from tbe bank of the Hudson River, where
extensive terminals bave been secured, to Wilkesbarre in tbe coal field.
Now.the question keeps cropping up, for whom are tbe Hudson River
terminals intended ?   No one will admit that tbey can be for Ihe Susque¬
hanna itself, because tbe sinking of sucb a large amount of capital, esti¬
mated from ¥1,000,000   to 12,OOO,000, for terminals for a road of Susque¬
hanna's dimensions does not seem reasonable even if it is taken into account
that  the    inerease  of    net   income  from   the    through   haul  in  the
place    of    the   division   of    rates   witb    the    Lackawanna   may   be
comparatively   large.   Besides,   too,   it   is   known    that   the   Lacka¬
wanna   has   a   contract   which    presumably   cannot    be   terminated
for some time to come.   The growth of business eveu witb tbe extensions
completed and operating can only be moderate and largely only in pro-
tortion  to tbe growth of the demand for the Scranton coal, in which
business SuEquehaana has for competitors the Pennsylvania, Lackawanna,
Delaware & Hudson, Jersey Central, Lehigh  Valley and the Erie; too
formidable and active a string to allow of the thought that Susquehanna
can get any than a moderate proportion of any new business that may be
created.   Tbe question for whom art these terminals'. always recurs there¬
fore.   Of course it is generally said that a big road is behind the Susque¬
hanna in tbis work and tbe Canadian Paciflc has been most frequently
mentioned, though that seems out of the question.    It is very easy to be
wrong in such matters, but an examination of the map gives color to the
general rumor tbat tbe terminals are to supply the needs of a bigger road
than the one that is building them.   It will be seen tbat at Wilkesbarre a
connection could be made with the terminus there of the Delaware &
Hudson which now does not run into NewYork and tbe Delaware &
Hudson leads up to the connection with the Grand Trunk at tbe New York
boundary line,

Tbe proposal of the Three C. management to envelop the property iu a
blanket mortgage for §50,000,000 does not meet witb a very great deal of
favor if quotations tell anything, yet there are some things the stockholders
would do well to consider before deciding upon|it. It was pointed out some
time ago tbat something had to be done to increase net earnings, or div.
idends oa the common stock at least must be suspended, Tbe financing
of a dividend-paying company made up of a number of companies tbemo&t
of wbicb had not paid dividends for many years before was naturally an
object of suspicion and its securities have Buffered) as a consequence*
Bnt it is now explained that Houch tbat was charged to operating
expenses properly belonged to construction or permanent equipment
with tbe inference that these amounts could properly have been
capitalized. For instance, in tbe last annual report it is statel
tbat during the year ended June SOth last $483,931 were charged
to renewal of cross-ties, au amount largely in excess of ordinary renewals;
$14,711 for interlocking at various railway .iunctions; $3i9,t55 had been
expended iu rebuilding of bridges; S51,6>U were expended for ten coaches^
$7'S,10U for freight ears, S173,-i 1 for twenty locomotives, and all charged
to repairs; $^7,:::19 had been charged to repairs for work begun ou shops
and yards at Limdaie. Some of these amouuts would no doubt properly be
chargeable to operating expenses uuder the head of repairs and renewals,
and tbe report is careful uot to distinguish them, but it is also no doubt
true that some oE tbem-would have been very properly provided for out
of new.capital bad it been available. The management seems now deter-
- mined to provide-for tbe gradual ^owtb of tbe capital in tbe future by
. sales o£ bonds from yearto year tomcat the cost of improvements previ-
lously.pjudior out of .earnings. Undgr prcperrtstricUons.tbisisagoodpian.
Atfiraisightit appears like an ijstention to pay dividends by a roundabout