56





The  Record and Guide.





January 28,1886





people, like the railroads, always cut one another under when there
is little business to do. Strikes and demands for better wages are
annoyances for employers, for they show the times are better.





Apart from the Irish question there are two topics touched upon
in the Queen's speech which are of special interest just now to
Americrns. Says the Queen : " I regret to say that no material
improvement can be noted in the condition of trade or agriculture.
I feel the deepest sympathy for the great number of persons in
many avocations of life who are suffering under a pressure which,
I trust, will prove transient." England, as well as Germany and
the other gold mono-metallic countries, is suffering from the
demonetization of silver. The addition to the purchasing power
of gold shows itself in the reduced price of all commodities ; hence
the distress to which the Queen alludes. England has no silver
coinage law as we have to help maintain prices; hence all her
industries suffer, except such as are helped by the better times on
this side of the Atlantic. The higher price for steel and iron
established here has had its effect in England, while the only
profitable employment of foreign capital is in dealing in American
bonds and stocks. Of course this depression in prices is a good
thing for the very rich, the purchasing power of whose money has
greatly increased; but what insensate folly it would be for the
business people of the United States to abolish silver coinage and
sacrifice themselves and the working classes for the sole profit of
the  small percentage of bankers and capitalists who own the

money of the country.

.----------«----------

The other topic mentioned in this speech is the promise that the
Tory administration will bring in a bill to cheapen and facilitate
the transfer of land. The English colonies of New Zealand and
Australia have the most perfect system of land conveyance in the
world. It is as certain and as cheap as the sale of stocks and bonds
in Wall street. All parties have agreed in England to reform the
land laws in this particular. We will undoubtedly lag far in the rear
of Great Britain in this respect. The officials who profit by the
present state of affairs, as well as the legal profession, are united in
keeping in existence existing abuses which is profitable to them,
however onerous they may be to the owners and purchasers of

realty,

----------«----------

Public Opinion in the East Changing.

When some years ago The Record and Gums undertook to present
the bi-metallic side of the gold unit controversy, it was almost alone
in the position it took in the press of New York. There was not
a daily or weekly paper, the Mining Record excepted, that was
not practically on tbe side of gold mono-metallism. Indeed, so strong
was the feeling that an advocate of silver coinage was looked upon
as a fool or a knave. But a change has occurred within the past year. The
Sun and Star now favor silver coinage. The publication of,the speeches of
Senators Brown, Teller and others, have opened the eyes of the public here
East. When Senator Beck made his famous speech, not a New York paper
would publish a line of it. The Evening Post.called it a "bray," but
since then the editor of that paper, Mr. Horace White, has published a
pamphlet refuting the "bray. At a meeting of the Constitution Club,
the other evening, the silver side of the controversy had almost the unani¬
mous indorsement of the audience. P. B. Thurber's {illusion to silver in the
Nineteenth Century Club showed there were many sympathizers with
bi-metaUism among the rich and fashionable people of New York.
The recent "attempt of the bears to depress values by sending gold
abroad and trying to get up a scare about silver has made the business
community indignant, and many of the money-writers for the press have
shown how senseless and unfounded is the fear of our getting on a sUver
basis. The Stockholder, which heretofore maintained the gold side of the
controversy, were induced last Thursday to publish the following extract
from the circular of Green & Bateman. Our readers will note that it
seems like a repetition of what we have been saying for three yeare past.
Says this circular:

The silver question has had a tendency to unsettle values in our stock
market. It seems to.be more of a scare thau otherwise, for the legal tender
silver circulation in France is $14 per head, allied with $23 of gold per head.
In the United States the legal tender silver circulation is $3.75 per head,
allied with $9 per head of gold. The silver iu France is valued at a rate
which would make our standard silver dollar worth about $1.03. In other
words, in France they value their silver more than we do. With this silver
circulation of $14 per head it is still one of the soundest countries financially
in the world. After paying one thousand Bullion dollars war indemnity
to Germany in three years it is highly prosperous, and duriag the last ten
years has gained vastly more gold by importation, nearly six times more,
than England and Germany with their mono-metallic system and policy:

This firm represents Western feeling to be sure, bufc it is nofc alone in Wall
sfcreet; the discussion now"going on is discrediting the banks and the Eastern
press. In Congress the gold mono-metaUisfcs have no show at alL Were
any member fco repeat the preposterous italicized paragraphs on the editor¬
ial page of the Herald, he would be overwhelmed at once with facts and
arguments which would show the absurdity of his statements.

The Record and Gxtedb has naturally a large circulation amongst
bankers and money-lenders, but ifcs patrons have never objected to the
views we have presented on the silver question. On the contrary, our
readers have acknowledged that the arguments we presented were sound.
The following communication from the head of one of the largest business
concerns in New York is a fair expression of the feeling of our patrons.
Wo caanQ^ T^^ WfU give the muqe ^eciosf |^ anight ore^te ^ prejudiQe ut





certain quarters against a firm which' does an Immense business in all
parts of the country.
Editor Record and Guide :

I am very much interested iu the discussion of what may be the best
measure of values; and I endorse your views on every point.' Silver being
better distributed over the world, ifc would be a befcter single standard than
gold, but bi-metallism at this time seems to be most practicable, and the
greatest diflBculty in the way of convincing the public mind of this fact is
the sentimentalism regarding the " intrinsic " value of gold. Should part'
of the usefulness of gold be taken away (coinage), and the usefulness of
silver increased, the two metals would gradually approach each other in
commercial value, and the constantly widening difference in the compara¬
tive values of gold (the present standard) and commodities all over the
world would cease. Many persons believe that thedecline in price of mer¬
chandise is entirely due to over-production (whatever that may mean)—
that is, so-called over-production is in a great measure stimulated by the
efforts of producers to overcome their lessening receipts by a larger out-
tiuTi of product.                                                                                    K.





Concerning Men and Things.

***

It seems a trivial matter, but there is scai'cely a person iu New York,
whether a resident or visitor, who has not been driven to the verge of des¬
peration in the endeavor to find the number of a house at night. The
amount of profanity that has been expended in this way it would be difficult
to estimate. You reach the street where the house you are in search of is
situated. You know the number, but have no idea how many houses there
are in a block. You pass along in the hope of seeing a number that will
enable you to calculate, but all is dark. Then you go on until you see a
figure with a light behind it, only to find thafc you have overshofc the mark;
then you go back again, and if by any chance you lose count you may have,
to run up aud down two or three strange stoops, pull one of the outer doors
to in the hope of catching a glimpse of the figures by a dim religious light,
until you get to the right house. This is nofc a pleasant occupation on a
cold, frosty or rainy night. Some person had the temerity to induce the
Board of Aldermen to legislate on the subject; but they declined to do so,
probably because nobody felt disposed to " see" them on the subject. Why
not have on every lamp-post the number of the house opposite to which it
stands.   It would be a boon to the night wanderers in up-town streets.

* * *

Although the word dude has rather a " chesfcnufcfcy" flavor, yefc fchere is
no ofcher word that so well conveys the idea of the daintily dressed young
men who are to be found at balls, receptions and other entertainments.
They were never so numerous as at present. Since the world has been in
existence there have always been fops, dandies, swells or something akin to
them, but the New York dude is a genus peculiar to this city. He is not
muscular, he is not handsome, he is not good-looking, and he is painfully
young. He wears good clothes. He is stupid, inclined to be a snob, affects
a nondescript accent in his speech which somebody has told him is the
aristocratic English way of talking. He was largely on hand at the Charity
Ball—which, by the way, was an unusually successful entertainment—as
floor manager, wifch nothing to do but wear a big broad red ribbon. If the
men of thirty and forty won't dance the young women have no alternative
but fco take boys of eighteen and twenty for partners, but as young women
have always more sense than these youngsters they should do their b«6t to
induce them not to make themselves ridiculous by feebly imitating fche
mosfc objecfcionable characfcerisfcics of Englishmen.

* '*

There have of late years been so many wonderful inventions a«inecfced
with electricity that a new one attracts but little attention. A young
inventor, however, unknown to fame has applied for a patent in Washing¬
ton which, if granted, may solve the problem of electricity as a motive
power. He claims to have discovered a method by which electricity can be
produced 75 per cent, cheaper than the means afc present employed. A
company has been formed to exploit his invention, pf which great things ai'e
naturally expected. He obtaiiis a good electric current in a battery without
the aid of acids or metals. The cost of zinc and acids has always prevented
the use of electricity as a motive power .^even on a small scale, and on a
larger scale for electric light and other purposes it has been necessary to
obtain the electricity by mechanical, means, such as sfceam power, thus
having to use coal to get sfceam and wifch ifcs aid. the electricity from the
dynamo, which involves great waste andtheuse of another power to obtain
a second. If there is anything in this new invention the use of electricity
will become as comnion as water. The inventor is still engaged in making
experiBients xmder the superintendence of a well-known scientific expert.

** *

The recent chess contest attracted more attention thau it deserved.
There was nothing brilliant in the play on either side, and Steinitz lost three
of his games by blunders which would have been mortifying to an amateur.
He fell into traps which are incomprehensible in a chess player of his stand¬
ing. Nor was there anything brilliant in Zukerfcorfc's play. He persisted
in opening his games with the Queen's gambit, which generally leads to a
common-place contest. In interviews with the reporters, the contestants
agreed in disparaging Morphy, and both expressed the opinion thafc were
that phenomenal player alive now his reputation would suffer in compari¬
son vrith living experts, meaning of course themselves. The writer, how¬
ever, who remembers Morphy's games iu this city very well, is of the
opinion that he could give either Steinitz or Zukertort a knight and then
beat either of them easily. It has been almost impossible to follow the
games as they have'^been reported by our daily newspapers, because of the
errors in the score. If the Associated Press undertakes to telegraph the
games yet to be played from St. Louis and New Orleans they will, in all
probability, make a mess of ifc.

***           •

This will probably be a bad fruit year. The fcerrible January blizzard
has injured the peach trees all over the country, while the orange crop
of Florida has been almost entirely, cufc off. The nursery trees have all
been killed. A very intelligent letter writer from Florida states that the
old trees have beeii so injured, that it will be t^ee ^ew« before they