EAL  Estate   Record





AND BUILDERS' GUIDE.





Vol. XXVII.





NEW YOEK, SATURDAY, MAECH 26, 1881.





No. 680





Published Weekly by The

RealEstate Record Association





$6.00





TERMS:

OIVE YEAR, iu advance   -   -   -

Connnunications .sliould be addi-es.sed to

C. W. SWEET, 137 Broadway.

J. T. LINDSEY, Business Manager.





THE BULL AND THE BEAR VIEW
CONTRASTED.

The views of leading operators on tbe
street are very fairly divided as to the
future of the market. It is conceded that
the hopeful view should guide investors who
wish to buy for a long turn. Even the con-
one or two crop failures will not permanently
injure our railway lines. The only differ¬
ence of opinion is as to the immediate
future. Are the floating securities of the
street a purchase or a sale, say for the next
sixty days ? On this point opinions differ so
decidedly that prudent operators are out of
the market, and hence the sales are few and
the fluctuations in prices unimportant.

On tbe bull side it is shown that we have
exported .|13,000,000 more since January 1st
than we did in 1880, while there is a decrease
of nearly $18,000,000 in the value of tlie
imports. We have imported, in conse¬
quence, some 18,000,000 of gold and silver
since January 1 against $.3,700,000 last year.
In other words, the changes show a com¬
parative difference in our favor of nearly
$2ii,000,000 this year, compared with last
year.

These are striking facts, especially if
we kcrp in mind that since January 1st
nearly $20,000,000 of gold and silver from
our own mines have been added to the bullion
reserve of the country. The banks are
taking out more circulation. Our green¬
back and national banks together give us
some $740,000,000 of paper circulation,
while the gold and silver in the country
coined and available for coinage amounts to
nearly $650,000,000. Our circulating me¬
dium since the first of January, 1879, has
more than doubled, and from no quarter is
there any possibility of contraction.

Then, look at the emigration. It is far in
excess of what it was this time last year.
Our manufacturing industries were never so
active. There are no indications that the
foreign demand for our securities has
ceased. To sum up, the bull argument is
heavy exports, light imports, the flow of
bullion from abroad, the retention of our
own bullion, giving constant additions to
the currency, the large emigration, the
activity in manufacturing and prosperous
trade.

We now come to the reasoning of those
who are out of the market or have sold it
short.   They point out:

1st. The fact that the recent bull move¬
ment and an advance in prices has been
confined to the walls of the Stock Exchange.
In the " boom " of the fall of 1879 every iliiug





advanced in price. But since the summer
of 1880, while railway securities went kiting,
food products have declined in values, cot¬
ton is lower than it has been for two years
past, the metals have not advanced despite
the heavy consu.mption, and real estate,
while strong and firm, does not show as
much speculative activity as it did in the
spring of 1880.

2d. We have passed through a winter of
phenomenal severity. It has not only
diminished the business, but it has largely
increased the running expenses of all rail¬
roads north of the Ohio and Missouri Rivers.
The Grangers have suffered unprecedented
losses, and the only railroads that profited
hav9 been the coal carriers, and with these
the expense account has been largely in¬
creased.

3d. It is now certain that the crop-plant¬
ing season will be late and the acreage
seeded far less than for the last three
years. The weather has been so exception¬
ally bad that a short crop, if not a disastrous
failure, is among the probabilities. As the
street always discounts such events, the
market is a sale.

4th. The prospect of a refunding bill mak¬
ing money very cheap added at least ten
points to the prevailing prices. As there is
now no hope of any such measure and no
short time treasury notes to inflate, the
market, it is argued, should recede in prices.

Then, there are the spring settlements and
the uncertainty-as to the policy of the
administration, all of which tend to check
speculation and create a bearish feeling.

The above epitomizes the situation. We
really think the time has come when pru¬
dent investors wiU let the market alone and
turn their attention to a kind of property
about which there can be no mistake. We
mean real estate. Stocks may go up and
stocks may go down, but real estate on this
island is like the tides in the " Propontic
Sea," which knows no "retiring ebb."

--------------i*>-------------

THE WORLD'S FaIR.

It was The Real Estate Record which
flrst advocated the appointment of Ulysses
S. Grant as the chief executive of the
World's Fair to be held in New York. Our
advice was followed, but General Grant
seems to have been dissatisfied with the site
selected and has resigned from the position
of President of the proposed exhibition.

It is not to be disguised that this question
of site is what has, so far, prevented our
citizens from subscribing liberally for the
stock of the company. As a matter of fact,
the location is not yet decided, nor can it be.

By section 21 of the act of incorporation
of the commission, it is provided " that not
less than $1,000,000 shall be subscribed and
not less than 10 per cent, thereof be paid in,
before said commission shall do any cor¬
porate act other than the acts necessary to
its organization." As $250,000 of the mil¬
lion, which, it is claimed, has been sub¬
scribed, is conditional upon the raising of
$4,000,000, it is doubted whether the com





mission can adopt any site or do any cor¬
porate act.

It is the misfortune of New York that
there are seven or eight excellent locations
for a fair. The friends of each are so pow¬
erful that they can prevent any general sub¬
scription to the stock. Had the Central
Park and Manhattan square been adopted,
as was urged by the commission originaUy
and by ex-President Grant more recently,
there is no doubt but what the necessary
funds could have been easily raised, for the
location appealed directly to the personal
interests of every hotel and lodging house
keeper in New York, the heads of all the
business houses and the caterers to the
amusement of the public. But Inwood is so
remote from the centre of business activity
that shrewd business people fear that hotels
and stores and amusements would be pro¬
vided for the thronging multitudes in the
immediate neighborhood. Then, the "Van¬
derbilt subscription was a disappoinf>ment.
Had the Central road subscribed a miUion of
doUars, as it should have done, General
Grant would not have resigned the Presi¬
dency and the fair would now have been on
the high road to success.

It does not seem possible to get the press
of New York to tolerate a fair held in the
pleasure ground of the city. Whatever bus¬
iness reasons may be urged, there is the
sentiment very generally diffused that it wiU
not do to convert the Central Park from its
present uses. We could have a fair that
would add tens of millions to the trade of
this city and would have given an immense
stimulus to the value of property on this
island. But the only site which would
secure the fair and make it a financial suc¬
cess is just the one to which the newspapers
of New York unanimously object. So the
exhibition wUl be held in aU probabUity in
some Western city, Chicago perhaps, where
sentiment does not stand in the way of the
business interests of the community.





Our Albany information to-day wUl be
found interesting. There is every reason
to believe that the Legislature will remain
in session until June, and it is too soon to
say whether any wise legislation wiU be ef¬
fected. Public opinion wUl probably force
the Legislature to pass Senator McCarthy's
amendments to our present charter. So far
as we can see, the changes are judicious,
but there is always danger that, towards the
end of the session, amendments will be
smuggled in to continue old abuses or make
an opening for new ones. As one party has
absolute control of every department of our
State government, it will be held to a rigid
accountabUity if it faUs to give New York
a good charter.





A member of the West Side association
says there is nothing before the Legislature
affecting that part of the city. There may
be some bUl incubating of which they know
nothing, but they have nothing to ask of the
powers that be at Albany.   By the way