Real Estate Record
AND BUILDERS' GUIDE.
Vol. XXY.
NEW YOEK, SATUEDAY, APEIL 3, 1880.
No. 629
Published Weekly by
C^t Eeal Estate EccortJ ^ssonatton.
tERMS.
ONK YBAR. in advance....SIO.OO.
Coraraunications should be addressed to
C. W. STVEET.
Nos. 135 AND 137 Broadawv
OUR MINING SUPPLEMENT.
On Tuesday next we will issue a supplement to
The Real Estate Record, giving important min¬
ing intelligence, made up in the interest of invest¬
ors, and not of the sellers of shares. There is
enough, and to spare, of publications aiming to in¬
duce the public to invest in mining companies.
The leading daily papers of New York, Boston,
Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis
now h;vve departments devoted to setting forth the
great value of mining properties. We think the
sanguine view of this great interest is much too
prominent in all the publications we have seen.
There is money to lose as well as money to make
in mining investments, and our aim is to represent
the cautious, conservative investor, rather than the
bopetul promoter. The price of the supplement
will be five cents per copy, with the usual discount
to the trade. Any subscriber of The Record will
receive a copy free by sending to the oflice, 137
Broadway.
TO OUR ADVERTISERS.
The importance of The Real Estate Recokd as
an advertising medium for those who have any¬
thing at all to sell that belongs to a house, whether
it be the lot on which it stands, or the handle of
the door that denotes the entrance to said house,
is attested by the following letter received at thig
office Thursday:
New Yobk Soap Stone Wobks, )
61 Gold Street. [
To the Editor of The Real Estate Recobd :
I take pleasure in informing you that, after the
very flrst insertion ot my advertisement in your
valuable paper, a man came to this office with a
PiECORD in his hand, and pointing to my advertise¬
ment therein, stating that his attention had been
called to my soap stone by the same, gave me,
alter some brief negotiations, an order amounting
to over $300. You are at liberty to make whatever
use you please of this information.
W. H. Ramsdell,
New York, March 31,1880. Proprietor.
OUR COURSE ON MINING STOCKS.
Certain city journals have taken The
Real Estate Record to task for giving some
attention to mining matters, lathe interest of the
investing class. They allege it is out of the line of
our specialty and that we have made the mistake
of attacking the best securities which are dealt in
on our mining exchanges.
Now, it happens that the articles in Thk Real.
Estate Record, upon mining, were written by
those who are thoroughly competent; who know
whereof they speak, and who have been in the
business and on the "inside" for the last three
years. We believe profoundly in mining as a
legitimate industry. We regard the business in
itself as worthy of encouragement, and it is in the
interest of mining, as a legitimate industry, that
these articles are written for The Record.
We do represent the real estate interests. After
a period of depression, in which well located and
valuable property has been slaughtered by f ore-
closuro sales, and an unreasonably gloomy view of
the situation has prevailed, the time has come
when real estate interests ought to look up and so
the V do. Property in and about New York is held
at much higher figures than was asked a year
ago; still, there is no question but that real estate
as yet lags behind in the general march of im¬
provement. True, it is nearly always the last
interest to recover after a great panic, but wise
investors do not buy property when it has become
high but before it begins to rise. We believe in
the mining business, but we object to a craze—to
dishonest methods, to over capitalization, to the
gutting of mines, to the foisting upon the Eastern
public of properties at four times the value they
would command in California, where they are
known. We find that the whole daily press has
practically entered into a conspiracy to puff all
manner of properties, good, bad and indifferent,
and it struck us that some paper repre¬
senting the investing class should assume the
role of censor and tell some of the adverse
stories about mines and mining properties as
well as those which are crmplimentary. We
did so last week and whether we shall continue
these articles depends wholly upon our readers. If
they want them, they shall have them. If
they do not, we shall stop these supplements, or
issue a paper especially devoted to the business of
telling the truth, not only about mining matters,
but about financial matters generally. And we
do this because we are interested not only in the
investing class, but in real estate. It should be
remembered that mining is taking immense sums
of money away from other legitimate business.
There is just now an unwholesome excitement
all over the country, and the most conservative
people are putting their means into all manner
of ventures, which will scatter money in the
Western Territories far remote from the centres
of trade.
In the list of 160 companies, of which some
account is given in the Tribune of last Monday,
the total capitalization is $580,000,000. Now,
this list does not begin to give all that there are
in the United States, but only those that have
ofiices and do business in the city of New York.
Of course, this great aggregate is partly nominal,
but still these 160 companies fail to represent the
vast number of private corporations which are
forming, and in which money is being invested
for the purpose of finally bringing them on the
Eastern market. It is not too much to say that
nominally $3,000,000,000, take the country through,
east of the Mississippi, is now being placed in
mines in Colorado, Dakota, Nevada, Arizona and
California. A good deal of money also is being
sunk iu the silver mines of Maine, where already
over one hundred and fifty companies are organ¬
ized, in Arkansas and in the South Atlantic
States. Now, this sudden diversion of great
sums of money is unwholesome. The returns, if
any, are in the distant future. A great deal of
this money will be absolutely wasted in pros¬
pecting, in putting up mills, in sinking shafts, in
organizing water supplies, which will not tell at
all, or frora which there will be no return for
eight or ten years.
Prom statistics recently published in tbe I)ai}.y
Bulletin, it seems that of new railways there are
nearly 16,000 miles either under way or projected
The capitalization of these will absorb, according
to the Bulletin, $-373,0'>0,000, while the nominal
capitaris already put at $17.3,000,000. With re
gard to this matter, the Bulletin well says :
If we assume this to be the average rate of
capitalization, it will follow tbat, upon the 1.5,612
miles projected and placed under construction
within tbe last seven months, the new issues of
stock and bonds will aggregate $137,0iiC,00O. If
we take the actual cash cost of line and equip¬
ment to average $17,.500 per mile, and assume
that all the projected roads will be actually built,
we reach the conclusion that these new enter¬
prises will absorb $:i7S,000,000 of capital. This
diversion of capital and labor from its ordinary
productive employments to provide mere facili¬
ties of transport constitutes a very important
element in the prevailing tendency towards high
prices. It was this same process of sinking capi¬
tal in non-productive works in advance of the
requirements of trade, that more than anything
else brought upon the country the inflation that
collapsed in 1873; aud it is anything but an
assuring symptom that the evil is being so soon
and so boldly repeated.
With this revival of interests in non-productive
work like railways, and the vast flow of capital
into new mining enterprises, it will be seen that
we are preparing for an unwholesome state of
affairs here in the East, for tight money, for high
prices, and, what is of more moment, to real
estate owners, the indefinite postponement of any
activity in realty. People have made money in
the last year and a half, a great deal of it, but
investors cannot eat their cake and have it too.
They cannot invest heavily in new railways and
" wild cat" mines, and then buy real estate be¬
sides. We believe the whole real estate interest
will join with us in deploring the unhealthy ex¬
citement which is raging in the mining world.
We believe, as they believe, that this intense in¬
terest in mines is unnatural, and that it will end
in disaster.
Then, as to the properties we have criticised.
We have picked out the so-called best in the
marketj to show even their shortcomings. We
believe that in the end there is more likelihood of
danger to the conservative investor from mines
like the Ontario, Homestake, Father De Smet
and the Standard than from the very worst
" cats" on tbe market. The backers of these
mines are Californians, who have so manipulated
the San Francisco market that it has raised a
public revolt which is driving them away from
the Pacific coast. Mr. Haggin, of San Francisco,
who is at the back of most of these mines, is a man
of immense wealth, who has made it in ways
satisfactory doubtless to himself, but not to those
who have dealt with him.
Our readers may have noticed in the published
list of San Francisco mines tbe Tiptop, of Arizona.