Real  Estate   Record





AND BUILDERS' GUIDE.





Vol. XXVII.





NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JANUARY 22, 1881.





No. 671.





Published Weekly by

Cbc Ecal Estate Eecorb Association.

TERMS.

ONK VKASl. in advance___SIO.OO.

O'lTriiniinications should be addressed to

C.   W.   SAVjeKT,

No. 187 Broaoway





Investors and dealers who have been vis¬
iting Harlem and the annexed district dur¬
ing the past ten days, and have gone back to
their homes and offices without securing the
property they were looking after,   should
remember that the real estate market has
indeed entered upon a new phase.   It is of
no use to clamor now that these and those
lots could be had for such and such a price
one or two years ago.     All this has  been
changed since then.    Real estate is at last
feeling the effect of the prosperity that has
been making itself felt in various lines of
trade and business, and the surplus fund
thus accumulated in the various banks by
individual merchants and   others   has   for
more than a twelve-month past b(?en seeking
a safe outlet for investment.    The present
high prices of railroad and other securities
has at last driven investors to real estate,
which, having been neglected until the very
last moment, has at last come to the front.
It is there now and will stay there, and,
while this lasts, it is of no use to allude to
the prices of one or two years ago.





Improvement, $32 to f 39 premium, and this
list might be indefinitely extended.     The
most profitable of these enterprises are never
made public.     These  insiders,   with their
construction bonds, every time come ahead
of the first mortgage bonds.   They are often
paid in first mortgage bonds to the amount
of their subscription and stock as a gratuity
besides.   It would be an instructive chapter
in the railroad building of this country, if it
could be found out how much actual money
was paid in by the original constructors of a
railroad, and  then  a comparison be made
between that sum and the amount of the
mortgage bonds and stocks floated upon the
public.    Our methods of building railroads
is very wasteful.    There is a vast piling up
of bonds and stocks, for which the public
have to pay and of which a great deal is the
purest fiction.    It is the productive industry
of the country which is finally taxed, to give
vitality to these fictitious capitals.   These
construction companies help to make   the
rich richer, but the bulk of the community
must assume the burden at last.    It should
be borne in mind that all taxation, whether
corporate or national, comes finally upon
land and upon labor, and the fact that land
has to share so much of these burdens is why
we refer to it in these columns.





GROUND FLOOR  INVESTMENTS.
While   the    general   public is   making
money, by buying stocks and bonds at pres¬
ent market prices, it should   be borne in
mind that the largest profits are made by
the inside rings, who are constructing the
new transportation lines.     In   connection
with Jay Gould and all the large railroad
men,  are certain  favored capitalists, who
are apprised of these   new   undertakings.
Thus, the new extension of the Missouri,
Kansas & Texas road is in the hands of a
construction company and the capital is al¬
ready subscribed, the  shares commanding
a very high premium.   So with the new
road to Mexico.     These   construction  ac¬
counts are never open for public competi¬
tion.   They are the profits in advance of the
great  operators and their special   friends.
Some of the quotations of  premiums on
these favored securities tell their own story.
Central Construction of the American Union
Telegraph sells from |1,00 to $1.25 ; Lacka-
wana and "Western extension is from |27 to
|32 premium; New Orleans Pacific subscrip-
ti<m $13 and $16 premium;  Texas Pacific
subscription, $12 to $13)^ premium; Ameri¬
can Railway Improvement, $42 to $49 pre¬
mium;  American Union Cable, $5 to $15
premium;   Iron   Steamboat   subscriptions,
$3)^ to |5>4 premium;   Mexican National
Railway, |B to $3^ premium; International





REGISTER'S OFFICE.
If the authorities question the expediency
of erecting a new building for the valuable
records now in the old building, let some of
them visit the place at this time when it is
deluged throughout with water, and Mr.
Docharty has been compelled to ha7e the
books piled trp promiscuously in such dry
corners as were available. Great damage
would have been done the records in this
instance if he had not personally and
promptly taken the measures for their pro¬
tection.





THE TELEGRAPH SITUATION.
At length the tardy and short-sighted
people who control the daily press are be¬
ginning to call for a government ownership
of the telegraph system of the country. In
no other country on earth, save the United
States, is this indispensable agent of modern
civilization permitted to be the football for
stock speculators.

The Herald now mildly favors the build¬
ing of telegraph wires by the Government.
The great majority of the newspapers, how¬
ever, will never dare to take any such posi¬
tion, as they are completely under the con¬
trol of the speculative operators in the tele¬
graph stocks.

It is rumored that W. H. Vanderbilt was
very much astonished when, on signing the
papers, he discovered that the whole tele¬
graph system had passed out of his hands in¬
to those of Jay Gould.   Justly, or unjustly,





Mr. Vanderbilt is an object of detestation in
the "street." It is charged that his best
friends and members of his own family were
losers by his telegraph deal with Jay Gould.
Mr. Vanderbilt's great wealth is of itself suf¬
ficient to make him not only feared but
hated. It is the penalty of all greatness to
be envied or detested. And neither Jay
Gould nor W. H, Vanderbilt have as yet
linked their names with any enterprise
which has for its object the good of man¬
kind.

From present appearances, we judge the
consolidation wiU be effected, and that the
agitation for new telegraph lines wiU. quiet
down. We presume the Western Union
will be wise enough to deal hberal with the
public, for the present at least. It can do
this and pay 6 per cent, upon the eighty
million of capital. There is no rivalry that
can affect the companies for two years to
come. The Government will not act during
this short session, and any new company
could not get into successful operation in
less than two years.

There are two small companies in exist¬
ence, one called the American Rapid Compa¬
ny, which has lines from Boston to Wash¬
ington, and which uses the automatic sys¬
tem; the Mutual Union Company is a more
important organization, but its lines, as yet,
extend only from Boston to Philadelphia.
It will be to Washington before spring.
The first National Bank is behind this last
company, and it means business. Its origi¬
nal intention was to supply wires for private
firms who wish to deal directly with their
agencies in other cities. But, having poles
and wires, it could easily go into the gener¬
al news business. There are no independ¬
ent wires west of the seaboard cities not
controlled by the combination, save alone
the Government wires, connecting with dis¬
tant and unprofitable weather stations. In¬
siders, say that Western Union stock is
good for 125 ; that it is, in fact, the best
purchase on the fist. The leaduag manipu¬
lators will make a great deal of money out
of this deal, but the final upshot will be the
Government control of the whole telegraph
system.





A GREAT SOUTHWESTERN COMBI¬
NATION.
The "street" is full of stories of great
railway consolidations. The latest is that
the Iron Mountain, the Missouri, Kansas &
Texas and Texas Pacific, with connecting
branches, is to be formed into one gigantic
company, the stock of all the companies to
be converted into one bond and one stock,
covering the whole of Texas except the roads
running from Denison south.to Galveston,
that is, the Houston & Central as well as the
minor roads which lead to the Mississippi
and to Galveston. In other words, all the
roads which lead south and southwest into