444





The Real Estate Record





May 6,1882





paid no rent in Ireland, are not at all likely to I political there is danger of a Superintend-





pay rent in this country unless compelled to do
so. Our native American tenants, judging from
the number who have been "turned out" ou
hold-overs in times past, have no sympathy for
their landlords. Even now they do not pay then-
butcher, their baker, their grocer. If they buy
a bar of soap or a half pail of coal, the grocei-
boy must trudge home with it at then- siie. \ et
New York tenants must now have all the im¬
provements.

For who would live in a house now-a-days,
which had no bells, door openers, tubs, speaking
trumpets, ash shutes, elevators, cut-glass win¬
dows, sliding doors, carpeted stairs, or jamtors?

A landlord, who receives a rent on the loth ot
the month, which was due on the flrst, is indeed
a lucky man; more often ho is deferred by lymg
promises (the party never expectiug lo fulhl
tliem) pntil the end of the month. Even then
he must put the tenants out, and often pay the
express man to remove them to their new home.
The premises must then be painted or kalso-
mined, aud cleaned of all the filth aud rubbage
which the out-going tenant left, befo>-c any
" respectable " person will move in. Besides, the
dispossessed tenant taking away oftentimes one or
two months' rents, heartily hates his landlord
and will oftentimes smash the windows, steal
the keys, tlio boards from out the closets, the
globes on the gas fixtures, put the plumbing
aparatus in the water closets out of order, cut
the pulleys of the windows, break the door open¬
ers, .nnd even carry away the locks if they pos¬
sibly can.                                    •

Our political judges, now-a-days, will nofc re¬
move tenants for a week or two (Fifty-seventh
street court for instance) after they are sum-
moued by the Marshal. The working people of
this city are living too fast, they spend every
cent they earn hi going to theatres, m
banquets to Johanna's beaux, in splendid
dresses. Their diet includes the cost¬
liest luxuries. Is anyone surprised that people
o£ this kind never save any money, never be¬
come land holders themselves, tbat they cannot
pay their debts even for neces?aries, leaving aside
the landlord who always comes to the wall ? It
is estimated that there are twenty thousand fam¬
ilies iu this cifcy who pay no more thau six
mouths' rent in the vear, cheating their various
landlords out of the remainder. If any of them
should happen to roll home drunk, and spew over
the stairs, some obliging neighbor will forthwith
inform the Board of He.alth that "obnoxious gases
pervade the house," aud soon thereafter the laud-
lord is notified to put in new plumbing work,
that the soil pipes and traps musfc be altered, that
the floors must be dug up for dead rats. May
first arrives, and our tenants pack up and move
to secure " clean rooms for the summer." The
rooms will nat remain long clean, the walls will
soon be again "smokefl," untidy housewives
will allow roaches to inarch out in battalions, let
their tubs leak, and water pour down on ton of
one another, shake their carpets over each other's
windows, let their children roll in dirt until an
epidemic breaks out. and then they will again
move, when decimated by death, because the
house was not lucky. And this state of things
will continue until"our working classes learu
wisdom.                        Bernard J. Kelly,

17 Union Square.

The above is au overstatement of x;he case.
The great bulk of the tenants in New York
Ijay their rents promptly, and it is not fair
to malign every person who rents a house
because several thousand dead beats try to
cheat their landlords. It is as unfair to
create a prejudice against tenants as it is to
asperse landlords.





ent who may misuse his position if the law
gives him a chance so to do. A corrupt
Superintendent, with a right or rather the
wrong kind of a law at his back, could levy
blackmail without limit upon the whole
building trade of this vicinity. Hence,
while all honest builders are quite willing
that the law should be stringent as far as
the rights of the public are concerned, they
do not want powers lodged with the Super¬
intendent which might be abused or mis¬
used. There are structures now going up in
New York which are a disgrace to the
builders and a severe reflection upon the
looseness of our laws. The present enact-
men t u i idoubtedly'requires amendment. The
Real Estate Record is seriously thinking
of showing up some of the buildings re¬
cently constructed and now under way so
as to point out in what way the jn-esent law
is defective.





THE PROPOSED BUILDING LAWS.

There is naturally a good deal of anxiety
in building circles as to the character of the
law regulating the construction of buildings
which is to be passed this session by the
State Legislature. Of course dishonest and
scamp builders want a law which they can
evade. They wish to construct showy
houses with inferior material and flimsy in
character. But the public demand is for
safe edifices in which the materials will be
good, so that substantial houses will take
the place of many that are now unsafe.
While honest, conservative builders are
willing to subscribe fora very .°trin gent law,
they do not want the act so framed as to
put them at the mercy of the officials in the
Building Department. No one dreams of
complaining of anybody at present in au¬
thority, but so long as the appointments are





ABOUT REAL ESTATE PAPERS.
During   the   fifteen   years   which   have
elapsed  since The  Real  Estate Record
was founded,  about ten other real estate
]-)apers Jiave been started and have failed.
There is room for one paj)ei-, that the success
of The Record has proved ; but it has been
demonetrated by repeated experiments that
tliere is not an opening for more than one.
The reasons for these failures are not hard to
find.   The advertising patronage of a real
estate paper, no matter how enterprising or
how large its subscription list, is necessarily
very limited.   In other trade journals, such,
for instance, as those in the railway, insur¬
ance or iron manufacturing interests, there
is   an immense and   lucrative   advertising
patronage from all  parts of the country,
while the journals themselves are not very
cosily to publish ; but while the advertising
patronage of a real estate paper iu this city
is very small, the expenses of a paper such
as The Real Estate Record are necessarily
very large.    If a subscriber, for instance,
will compare this paper with the Iron Age,
he will at once notice how large is the ad¬
vertising patronage in the one compared with
the other, and how small the corresponding
outlay.   The collection of the news' in The
Record requires many peoj)le and continu¬
ous labor from one end of the week to the
other.  Every line of the conveyances, mort¬
gages, assignments  and  judgments,   sales
and tables must be gone over with great
care.    The clerical labor is necessarily very
heavy in order to insure accuracy and ful¬
ness.   The ordinary journal can be edited
with paste pot and scissors, but every line
of The Record* except a few tables, has to
be written anew and printed, weekly. Then,
to start a rival to The Record requires cer¬
tain technical knowledge which very few
have, while a paper like this would be value¬
less unless the readers were satisfied of the
honesty and accuracy of the statements and
reports in all parts of the paper.

Wo are not complaining of our adver¬
tisers. Fortunately a real estate paper ap¬
peals to other interests. The classes it cir¬
culates among are wealthy and influential,
and realty being the greatest single interesf
in any community, the subscription list is
necessarily large. Then other interests help
our advertising, such as the dealers in build¬
ing material, as well as' the niiscellaneous.
There has recently been a very large increase
in the subscription list of The Real Estate





Record, due, of course, to the increased and
increasing interest in real estate in this
neighborhood.

MINING INFORMATION.
The time is coming when the properties con¬
trolled, if not owned by George D. Eoberts, wiU
be offered for sale in this city.   The mining pub¬
lic are very weU aware of the fate of properties
put upon this markefc by Mr. Roberts and his
friends.     The history of Hukill, Ereeland, Chrys¬
olite, Robinson, Iron Silver, and  ^ast, but by no
means least, the State Line mines, is not reassur¬
ing to investors.    The general belief is that to¬
day the public have the shares, which are worth
little or nothing, while Roberts and his friends
have the money.    The new ventures of the same
parties are already on the market in Philadelphia;
they are situated in the Lake Valley region of
New Mexico, and are f om- in number, the Sierra
Grande, the Sierra Plata, the Sierra Bella, and
the Sierra Apache.   The two first sell for $5 and
$6 a share, and the two last for about $2 a share.
The par value of the .shares is $2\ and the num¬
ber of shares 20U,COO in each.    The ,most extraor¬
dinary claims are made as to the richness of at
least two of these mines, the Sierra Grande and the
Sierra Plata; the others join and are presump¬
tively as valuable when developed.    A mill has
been erected and commences operations towards
the close of this month.   The president of the
company says that the two principal mines will
pay 50 cents a share in July, 75 cents in August,
and $i;in September; that they wdU be worth $50
a share in time, and perbap.s $100, as tliere are the  _
most extraordinary silver deposits so far found in
this country.     The writer has conversed with
three gentlemen who have examined these prop¬
erties.    Supertntendenb Callaghan, of   the Bull
Domingo |mine is one, Mr. J. M. Harper is an¬
other, and Colonel William P. Schaeffer is a third.
They unite in saying that these properties are of
extraordinary value, that the ore is of surpassing
richness and that there is a great deal of it.   Col¬
onel Schaeffer says there  has not been  much
money spent upon the property, bufc the results
were really astonishing.   A scientific gentleman
named Shedd has recommended these properties
to Philadelphia capitalists, and the stock is very
largely he! d in that city.    So far as known, no
trained expert with a national reputation has ex¬
amined thesejmines, but after the fate of Professor
Raymond in Chrysolite, Ashburner in Robmson,
and Haguejin Sdver Cliff, the opinions of experts
are not as authoritative as they once were.   We
have no opinion of our own about these mines,
theijbalance of evidence is that they are very val¬
uable or appear to be so, but people who deal in
these stocks should bear in raiue that when Rob¬
erts and miniag investors have dealings, it is not
Roberts who looses the; money.

When mining stocks gefc a tumble there is gen¬
erally a good reason for it. Standard a few days
since fell from $19 to $15 on sales of nearly 2,000
shares. The gentlemen who represent the
property in this city said there was no reason for
the break; there was nothing wrong in the mine
to justify it; but on Thursday morning came the
announcement from the president of the com¬
pany that work was suspended for thirty or
forty days in order to repair the shaft and secure
the foundations. The persons who got this
information first not only got out of the stock,
but sold short, for even if the mine is as good as
ever and there is a surplus on hand large enough
to pay three dividends, still the fact of the inter¬
ruption of the working of the mine creates doubts
in the minds of investors, and they are very
likely to sell their stock. The location of the
present Standard shaft is a mistake ; it ought to
ba far to the easfc and much nearer to the Bodie
Une.

Bodie keeps strong and for good reasons.
Winze 17 is in very rich ore, but, however valu¬
able the ore body, it cannot be utilized until the
west crosscut from the Lent shaft strikes it some
60 feefc below winze 17. Should the ore body con¬
tinue unbroken to that depth, then Bodie wiU
again see high figm-es, and it ought also to help
the value of Standard.