Real  Estate   Record





AND BUILDERS' GUIDE.





YoL. XXY.





NEW YOEK, SATUEDAY, MAHOH 20, 1880.





No. 627





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the patronage of the mining interest is yery
hicrative and promises to be more so. Already a
swarm of sheets are published in the interest of
mining, and when the daily press takes hold of the
matter it really becomes very grave. Of course
the newspapers have not got the knowledge even
if they had the will to tell the truth about all the
properties that are put upon the market. They
are virtually drawn into a conspiracy with the
rascals who are " rigging''the market. It is not
by any means the best properties that do the most
advertising, but the worst, and it is the company
which advertises the most liberally which is noticed
the most favorably by the newspapers. Our
readers should bear in mind that in a great
gambling speculation, as this mining is going to be,
the newspapers are necessarily on the side of the
thieves. They manage to increase the excitement
and every story calculated to help the sale of the
stock is eagerly copied by the press, more especially
if the stock happens to be advertised in their
columns. What is needed to-day is some one journal
as far as it knows, to tell the truth about mining
properties. The Record is fortunate in having for
one of its contributors a gentleman who is thor¬
oughly posted; who has visited most of the mining
regions of the country and who has no interest but
to tell the truth. We propose to devote a certain
portion of our apace to this information. The aim
will be, in a dispassionate and straightforward
manner, to analyse the reports that are made, ex¬
amine carefully the published statements of all
mining properties seeking a market in New York,
and we expect to be "nothing if not critical."
We have no stock in this matter to " bull" or
" bear " Our canvassers have been instructed not
to go near mining companies or to solicit their
patronage. We repudiate in advance any persons,
claiming to represent The Real Estate Recoed,
soliciting advertisements on favor from any mining
corporation in this city or out of it. .We believe,
to-day, that investments in real estate are retarded
by the prevailing mania for buying mines and
mining shares. Literally, hundreds of millions of
dollars are being abstracted from the East and sent
out West to develop the distant regions of Arizona,
Idaho, Montana, to say nothing of California,
Dakota and Colorado, which might be better em¬
ployed here at home in real estate investments.
There is plenty of time to develop the outlying
regions. We think that nine-tenths of the money
sunk m sinking shafts will be worse than wasted.
If any of our readers have hints on this subject we
will be glad to profit by them, but we are de¬
termined that so great an interest as that of real
estate shall not be lost sight of, because of this
foolish scramble for the worthless shares of pre-
tensious but dishonest mining properties.





Published Weekly by

Che Ecd €sMft Eerarb %ssacmiwn,

TERMS.
OIVE YEAR, in advance.. ..SIO.OO.
Communications should be addressed to

C.   W.   SAVEET,

Nos. 135 AND 137 Broadawv





IN THE INTEREST OE MINING INVESTORS.

Our readers will remember that The Real Estate
Recokd was among the first journals in this city to
predict the mining "boom," which is just now
under way. More than a year ago we stated that
mining ventures would probably be the coming
mania. In speculative times there is always some
particular lunacy prevailing in the community,
which is taken advantage of by shrewd and con-
sciousless operators to line their own pockets at
the expense of the investing public.

The time has now come to raise a cry of warning.
Mining is as legitimate an industry as farming,
manufacturiug or any other human industry, but,
unhappily, the association of mining with stock
operations has always resulted, in every commu¬
nity, in a gambling mania followed by loss to all
but the lucky or dishonest few. Gold and silver
mines have, no^doubt, on the whole,||been worked
for the benefit of mankind, but we must remem¬
ber that the great gambling eras have been
brought about mainly by speculation in these
necessary products of the mineral world. The
Pacific Coast to-day is suffering from its experience
in mining speculations. It resulted there in a
change of the organic law in the State of California,
intended to put a stop to the abuses connected
with the manipulation of mines. This result has
been to send on to the East a swarm of people
who are determined to plunder the citizens of the
Atlantic Coast, as they have in times past those of
tho Pacific Coast. The Fifth Avenne Hotel, the
Sturtevant House as well as other hostelries on
Broadway are thronged with these people and cer¬
tainly a more unsavory looking lot of rascals waa
never seen outside of Sing Sing. The remarkable
thing in connection with this invasion of these
vandals from the Pacific Coast is the readiness
with which our merchants, bankers and leading
capitalists permit themselves to be associated with
them in the public prints and in enterprises of ^
very questionable character. With a hope of im¬
mediate profits, Presidents of Colleges, Banks,
Directoi-s in our fiduciary institutions and men of
means are quite wiUing to act as officers in com¬
panies with associates who came here tainted with
infamous records.

For a while, the daily press kept aloof from this
mania, but now we see so respectable a paper as the
New York Tribune together with the World both
cultivating this business for the sake of the adver¬
tisements and are helping to delude, innocently of
course, the community into investirig in the
practically worthless shares of mines now offered
on this market. We make no charges against the
press. Newspapers are published to make money.
The leading editors, themselves, know very little
about a business such, for instance, as mining. All
they are cognizant of is that the public has become
interested; that mines are offered for sale and that





THE HORSE CARS ABOVE  PIFTY-NINTH
STREET.

Mr. Cammann's suggestion, as approved by
several property owners, to take the horse
cars out of Eighth avenue, above Fifty-ninth
street, and run them along the Ninth avenue,
under the elevated road, ought to be counte¬
nanced by the railway companies. Mr. George
Law, we understand, is not opposed to
this change of base, and only recently stated
that if public opinion manifested itself in a man¬
ner loud enough to be heard, there would not be





much difficulty in arriving at a satisfactory
transfer of the route of the horse railroad. An
arrangement might easily be made to run the
cars from the Eighth avenue circle along the
tracks of the belt line^on ]''ifty-ninth street, and
so on to Ninth avenue, and, as Mr. George Law
controls the Eighth avenue as weU as the Ninth
avenue road, there 'ought to be no obstacle to
this change, which is so much desired, not only
by Eighth avenue owners, but by residents of
the extreme West Side. The company itself will
also be the gainer by this change of route, as
more passengers will avail themselves of the facil¬
ities offered for short trips, after leaving the
various stations of the elevated roads below One
Hundred and Tenth street.

Another surface road, for which, we believe,
the Broadway and Seventh Avenue Companyjpos-
sesses the franchise, should be built along upper
Broadway and the Boulevard. It is about time
that the ricketty stage which traverses that
route from Thirty-fourth street upward should
be done away with and the residents of that sec¬
tion be furnished with accommodations for travel
more congenial to the spirit of the times. It will
also increase the business of the stores that are
accumulating in the upper part of Broadway and
will certainly not be objected to by Boulevard
property-owners, as that thoroughfare is destined
to be filled after all with first class retail estab¬
lishments, for the simple reason that it is a contin¬
uation of Broadway.





THE EIGHTH AND NINTH WARDS.

It is singular that just about the time that there
is greater activity in the purchase of vacant lots
in the upper part of the island, there should also
be a revival of interest in the property of two of
the oldest wards of the city. We have already
pointed out in these columns how the constant
growth of the commerce of New York caUs for
more room to accommodate the numerous new
firms and combinations continually forming in
our midst. Greene street, Wooster street and
even Mercer street, along with Prince and
Bleecker streets, are now more and more sought
after by shrewd investors, owing to this demand
for more warehouse room. Steadily and without
any ostentation builders are actively at work in
metamorphosing the whole of the Eighth Ward,
and as each new building is completed there
seems to be no scarcity of tenants. They are all
being occupied one after another so that a man
who has not visited that section, say for a twelve
month, flnds himself suddenly in a region virtually
new to him.

The agitation of the Washington Market
question is also helping along the Ninth Ward or
at least a portion of it. For blocks around the
Gansevoort property, the effect of this change
has already been felt to a certain degree. In the
train of market men there always follow those
who desire to furnish them with food and other
requirements while on duty, and the lessons that
have been learned in that line in the lower part
of the city are not being overiooked by the Ninth
Warders. A casual visit to the new market
grounds must convince the most prejudiced mind
that the spot selected for the market wagons
certainly offers facilities which the farmers who