September 26, 1885





The   Record  and  Guide.





1047





in aU probahiUty a better price   for his property and have saved his
attorney's fee.                                                                                 Ko-Ko.





Title Insurance.

New York, September   23, 1885.
Editor Record and Guide:

In your editorial columns of last Satm'day's issue you say, very prop¬
erly, in referring to the improvements that are needed to facUitate reaj
estate transfers, that "dealers must come with guaranteed titles so that
transactions raay be closed immediately," and add that " it would be weU if
some title guarantee company were in the position to insure the property
that may be offered in the Exchange."

You could have gone further and said that the Title Guai'antee and Ti'ust
Company is already in a position to insure the titles offered, and has done so
again and again, both in the new Exchange and in the old, and always with
the same result—a saving in annoyance, time and ultimate cost to the pur¬
chasers, and a decided enhancement in price to the sellers.

The sale of the Fox estate last October, the sale of the executors of John
McConvUl last May, the sales of the receiver of the Knickerbocker Life
Insurance Company in Brooklyn last AprU and May, and many others have
made complete demonstration of the proposition advanced by your editorial
that to enable the new Exchange to effectually accomplish its objects the
property offered should be sold with title insured.

The same principle has been applied wifch the same results to improved
property both on the floor of the Exchange and at private sale. A notable
recent example is the rapid sale of the fiffceen houses on Seventy-fifth street,
now being offered by Mi\ W. J. Merritt, who tenders with his deed at his
expense a title policy of this company, guaranteeing the pm'chaser fco the
amount of the pui'chase price.

A single examination by an independent authority "carries the whole
fifteen houses into the hands of the respective owners, and they save at
least 6150 each m expenses at the outset.

It costs the owner a little raore, but it sells the houses, and he saves the
additional expense twice over in interest.

The additional remark in your editorial above referred to, that a title
insurance company like this is an enemy to legislation reforming the registi'y
laws, entirely misconceives the true relation of the various interests.
Nothing can be of greater value to this company thau the simpUfication of
the wretched land laws now existing, so as to get rid of the complicated
liens that make insurance of title so fuU of risk and yet so necessary for
the safety of owners or lenders. The simpler the record the safer wiU be
the business of title insurance. But, however simple the record, insurance
wiU still be necessary, and if every reform proposed by the Land Transfer
Reform Commission were accompUshed to-day, or were the new indexes
which this company is endeavoring—against the determined opposition of
the official searchers^to make completed, dealers on the fioor of the
Exchange would stUl be met wifch fche question, '' Does the chain of title,
now so easUy ascertained, raake a good title in law ?'

Until some professional authority is set up to put its seal on the answer
to this question, and make the title pass current, there wiU still be the same
delays, confusion and duplication of expenses.

This is the province of title insurance and a proper aud legitUuate field for
corporate enterprise. It simply offers to the real estate interest an oppor¬
tunity to abandon here, as they have elsewhere, a system that requires a
property to pay again as often as it Ls dealt in for work which it has already
paid for perhaps fifty times before, for a system that makes thafc examina¬
tion once for aU, if anything with greater care, and guarantees the result
wifch a paid-up insurance fund.       Title Guarantee and Trust Co.,

55 Liberty street, New York,





New Book on Real Estate.*

conveyances.
This is the title or topic of the ninth volume of that exceUent encyclo¬
pedia of practical use, the " Federal Decisions," edited by Mr. WUUam G.
Myer, and pubUshed by the Gilbert Book Company, of St. Louis, Mo.
This volume is full of the raost valuable information for the daily use of
business meu, and especially of all who deal in real estate. It contains tho
cases argued and determined hi the Supreme, Cu-cuit and District Courts of
the United States, comprising the opinions of those courts from the time of
their organization to the present date, together with exti'acts from the opin¬
ions of the Court of Claims and the Attorney-General, and the opinions of
general importance of the territorial courts on the whole subject of convey¬
ances, comprising deeds, their form and execution, delivery and acceptance,
registration and notice, validity, operation and construction, and proof of
deeds. Then all about mortgages and foreclosures and deficiency judg-
mer^t; also trust deeds, which are equitable mortgages; and especially the
whole subject of raUroad mortgages, and bonds and coupons, receivers'
debts and certificates. The volume concludes with a full statement of the
decisions of the aforesaid courts on the law of chattel mortgages. This
particular volume of the " Federal Decisions " is edited by Leonard A. Jones,
Esq., of Bosfcon, the weU-known author of several treatises on mortgages.
It is a handsomely printed and bound royal octavo of 900 pages, and worth
its weight in gold; but it cau be obtained by maU of the publishers for
only $8.





* Federal Decisions, Vol. IX., Coaveyances.   The GUbert Book Company,   pub¬
lishers, St. Louis, Mo.





The residents of New RocheUe and the surroimding neighborhood are
about to receive additional accommodation in the way of street travel. A
company has been organized, of which Major W. R. Bergholz is the pres¬
ident, to run a horee-car Une from Pelham to New RocheUe, running to the
depot, and thence to Starin's Island. Should the local board grant the
necessary permission, Major Bergholz states that the road wiU be in opera¬
tion December 1.   This line wiU bring a large section of ground uito the mar¬





ket, hitherto but sUghtly improved, including the fine high ground known
OS Huguenot Park.





The reasons given for the Treasury Department declining to issue silver
certificates in return for deposits of gold are, according to the Mining
Record, inadequate or misleading. One of these reasons is that the expense
to the government for sending silver certificates from New York to Western
and Southwestern points is $1.65 per thousand doUars, or $16.50 for every
mUliou dollars thus put into circulation. There must be some mistake here,
for there is a largejsurplus of silver dollars iu New Orleans, as is shown by
the fact that naval vessels, the Swatara and the Yantic, are transporting ten
miUions of silver doUars from New Orleans to Washington. Hence there is
nothing to prevent the government issuing the silver certificates at New
Orleans upon the deposit of the gold for the face value in New York. Then,
again, at the present price of silver bullion the government makes $150 on
every thousand it coins; paying out $1.65 aud receiving $150 cannot be
caUed a loosing business for the Treasury—quite the contrary. Then, again,
it is qiut« preposterous to say that after receiving the gold for the sUver
certificates the former is finaUy drained out of the Treasury again by the
use of the certificates for the payment of customs' duties. It is notorious
that the bulk of the sUver certificates paid out iu the West and South
remain there aa a porraaneut paper currency, taking the place of the bank
notes. The clamor the national banks and their organs are making is
because of this substitution of sUver certificates for bank issues. The pro¬
ducers of the South and West are uo longer forced to pay heavy rates of
interest for the use of currency in the spring and faU where the crops are
being moved.    Hence the outcries of the press representing the banks.





The Commercial Bulletin quotes The Record and Guide's paragraph
on the race between the Puritan and Genesta, in which occurs the following
sentences:

" We may beat the EngUsh in our model of a sailing craft, but the fact
remains that the steam vessels of Gretit Britain are seen on eveiy sea and
in all the ports of the world, whUe the fiag of the United States is conspicu¬
ous by its absence outside the shore Umits of our owu land. It is this
victory of Great Britain over the United States which our people should
take to heart."

The Bulletin makes the following comment:

" But the writer might have added the ' victory' is one which England has
won nofc so much by her superior genius as by our own folly. The tune is
come when a true * national feeUng' should demand that we [depart from
that foUy. Remove the artificial fetters which at present paralyze Amer¬
ican enterprise, American skill and American capital on the ocean, and
these wUl speedily restore the old fiag to its f;>rmer prestige aud once more
divide the world's carrying trade with the ' mistress of the seas.'"

The Philadelphia Ledger also points out the moral in the following
paragraph:

' 'Quite soothing to the superficial currents of national pride was the victory
of the fleet Uttle saUer, the Puritan, over the almost equally fast English
Genesta, and comforting likewise to the same emotion is fche victorj' of our
gentlemen cricket players over the gentlemen players of England; but the
thing that should fire American ambition and the successful rivalry needed,
is in the restoration of our commercial mariue fco the rank it formerly held
in comparison with that of England and the world. There would be some
substance in a hurrah for that."

If tho Democratic party in Congress has the wit to change om- tariff laws
and give government help to re-establishing our merchant mariue, we may
yet gain a victory over Grert Britain ou the seas that wiU be a real credit
to us. But it is pitiable to see the same journals which are magnifying this
trival yacht-racing business into a great national event, doing all they can
to discourage steamship buUding and ship owning on the pai-t of Americans.





The World  of Business.

Canadian Opposition to Reciprocity.

The Week, which is a strong supporter of commercial union with the
United States, asks why complete reciprocity should destroy the tie with
Britain suice partial reciprocity, such as existed from 1854 until 1866, did
not weaken it. The reason is this. The treaty of 1854 provided for the free
exchange of natural products only. The Canada of that day, i. e., Upper
aud Lower Canada, repealed the duties on those articles as against the
mother country, and the Americans made no objection, for the simple
reason that Britiain did not export animals, lumber, coal, breadstuffs, etc..
to Canada; hence their free admission to this country could not in any way
prejudice American interests, for as they were not imported here they could
not be re-exported into the States under the treaty. But if commercial
union means complete reciprocity, the free interchange not only of aU
natural products but of all manufactured articles, then the Americans
would, unquestionably, make it a condition sine qua non of the treaty thafc
we should rigidly maintain our duties against the manufactures of Britain.
Why so ? Simply because they would not permit us, while enjoying com¬
plete reciprocity wifch them, to give free admission to British goods which
might be sent fj'om hero into the States as Canadian goods. Commercial
union with the States would therefore involve discrimination against Britain,
and that would mean the sundering of tho connection, or we are much mis¬
taken. But the Weekn\a.y say that Mr. Brown proposed the free interchange
of certain mauufactured articles in the projecte<l treaty of 1874. True, but,
as ina}' be seen by reference to the reportof th© Privy Council, dated March
26, 1874, they were " manufactured articles notproduced in or exported from
Great Britain to this country," and none other. So that here again there was
no objection on the part of the Americans to the repeal of the Canadian duties
ou such goods as against Britain. On the other hand, the scheme which
the Week is advocatiug so eloquently contemplates tho free interchange
between Canada and the United States of everything produced out of
doors and of everything manufactured within. The Dominion, in fact,
is to trade as freely with the States as the States with ono another; and
that, as we have aUeady pointed out, would necessitate discrimination
against Britain. If the Week doubts our statement that the Americans
would insist upon our keeping up the duties against England, let it ask the
first Americau manufacturer who comes its way, or look, at Mr. Fish's
papers for 1874. Commercial union with the Uuited States meaus thafc,
so far as her commercial and manufacturing interests are concerned,
Canada shall become port and parcel of the United States. We ai-e to
submit om'selves to the Araerican tariff, with its weU-nigh prohibitory
duties upou European products, for the sake of securing free trade \vith
the sisterhood of States. In other words, these Young Liberals ask
Ontario to occupy a position identical with that of inland and agricultm-al
States like Iowa and Ohio, which, according to the teaching of Sir Richard