EAL  Estate   Record





AND BUILDERS' GUIDE.





YoL, XXYIII.





NEW YOBK, SATUEDAY, JULY 23, 1881





No. 697





Published Weekly by The

Real Estate Record Association

TERMS:
ONE TEAR, in adyancc.....$6.00

Communications shoxdd be addressed to

C. W. SWEET, 137 Broadway.

J. T. LINDSEY, Business Manager.

The crop accounts from the West get
worse and worse. It is now certain that
there will be a serious deficiency in both
wheat and corn. As the country is full of
money which must find employment, it is
easy to foresee that the speculative move¬
ment will find vent in land purchases, rather
than in railroads which are losing their bus¬
iness.





Governor Cornell continues his vetoes, his
last jierformance in that line being a refusal
to endorse a change in the grades on the
West Side above eighty-fourth street west
of the Boulevard. The Governor seetas lo
have one fixed purpose in mind. He will
not add to public and private burdens upon
the plea of improvement. The new croton
aqueduct, however much needed, would
have cost a great deal of money, and proper-
holders have the consolation of knowing,
that if they can't have the improvements
they ask for, they at least won't be required
to put their hands in their pockets to pay for
them.





THE SITUATION ON THE STREET.

Instead of a bull we are having a bear mar¬
ket. Prices, instead of going up, are steadily
going down and the end may not be yet.
While everything seemed to point to a high
market, every one admitted there was one
cloud in the sky, aud that was a j)robable
deficiency in the crops. It is now settled
that we are to have a short wheat crop and
a backward corn crop. The roads will not
have so much to do and as a consequence
their dividend value will not be as high as
it has been during the past two years.

.So the result has been a marking down of
quotations and the liberal selling of long
stock. The end is not yet, and may not be
until about the 1st of August, by which
time wiU be pretty well known the exact
condition of our own wheat crop and a clear
understanding of what is to be expected
abroad. There has been a heavy speculation
in wheat and corn, based on the belief that
the crop will not only be deficient in this
country but in Europe. The probabilities,
however, are that while there will be a fall¬
ing off in the production of grain on this
side of the Atlantic, the foreign crops will
be much better than they were last year.

If this is the condition of affairs, it is idle
to expect gold shipments, and without the
stimulus of gold inflation, there can be no
marked advance in railway shares. All the
present indications point to lower
prices; but the time will come when
there   wiU    be    an    important    rally   if





not a permanent advance. In the
first place money will be abundant
and cheap, that much is certain. Then after
the full effect of the short crops has been
discounted it will be found out that after
all the country is in a very good condition;
that labor is employed at full wages; that
money is abundant for all profitable enter¬
prises, and that the value of land is steadily
rising in all parts of the country. The im¬
mense immigration is another factor in sus¬
taining prices. As a matter of fact, we live
in bull times, and the present set back is
only one of the eddies in the current toward
high prices.

One of the influences to sustain the mar¬
ket is the vast number of enterprises that are
underway, and which have behind them
strong men and plenty of money. Many of
those have been commenced and none fin¬
ished, and the capitalists who have embarked
in them will strain every nerve to sustain
prices and make their ventures profitable.
Even if the market should go off there will
be many stocks in which there will be spe¬
cial deals, for connections will be made and
districts opened that will give profitable busi¬
ness to new lines made or old hues extended.

The most serious feature of the situation
is the cutting of rates. There does not seem
to be any sense in a railroad war, when it
depends on only three or four gentlemen to
settle matters. It may be that war has act¬
ually broken out between Vanderbilt and
Jay Gould. If it has, then shall we have
lively times for many months to come, and
others will get hm-t as well as the principal
combatants.

There is another factor which may help to
keep up prices, and that is the cotton crop.
From all accounts it will be larger than even
the great yield of last year. Cotton, at one
time, was king, and may occupy the same
relative place during the coming year. The
better wages of tli.e working class in the
north, will lead to a very heavy consumption
of cotton goods, and the better harvest
abroad will increase very largely the con¬
sumption of cotton fabrics in Europe. It is
then possible that the deficiency in wheat
an,d corn wiU be more than made up by the
increased value of oxir splendid cotton crop.
This wiU have a particularly beneficial effect
upon the Southern system of railways, and
especially the Southwestern, where the in¬
creased percentage of cotton raised yearly,
exceeds that of any other section of the
south. But we cannot tell about the cotton
crop, and will not feel its good effects until
September, and in the meantime the bears
may make further attacks upon the market,
especially upon Western and Northwestern
stocks. There is no danger of any trouble
about money, for the Government disburses
some $40,000,000 during August, in payment
for the called bonds.

<♦>

So far, but little has been said about Edi¬
son's electric light company.     Public atten¬
tion has been attracted rather to the more
^ showy performances of the other electric





light organizations. By October 1, however,
Edison will be in the field and ready, not
only to furnish electric light, but motive
power to a large section of the lower part
of New York city. Indeed, by the 1st of
January every house below Chambers street
can procure electricity for motive power or
for illuminating purposes. Before another
year is over; the steam and water heating
companies will be in operation. Should
they succeed, it ought to make a material
difference in insurance rates in New York,
as the danger from fire is thereby very
greatly lessened.





WHAT WILL THE  CHANGE AMOUNT
TO?

To put it understandingly, the elevated
railroad system has passed out of the hands of
steamboat men and gamblers, into the control
of railroad men and yet greater gamblers. We
say this deliberately, perfectly aware of the
fact that ]\fi-. Navarro was not a steamboat
man; nor can Cyrus W. Field be called a
practical railroad manager, although he was
for a short time president of the Wabash
road. But still it is apparent that the
elevated system was manipulated by the
Garrisons, whose chief experience was in
managing steamboat lines, and it is hereafter
to be controlled by some of the foremost, if
not the ablest, railroad managers in the
country. Nobody can question the ability
of the " Wabash crowd," Jay Gould, Russell
Sage, Sidney Dillon, Sam Sloan and their
other associates iu the Metropolitan direc-
torj'. The two receivers were clearly ap¬
pointed in the Wabash interest, and the fact
that Cyrus W. Field and Russell Sage were
both on the bail bonds, shows that a new
combination is in control, and that it can do
what it pleases with the elevated system.

But what will be done ?

He who can solve that question ought to
be able to make money in elevated stock.
Field, in the Evening Mail, and Jay Gould,
in the World, are bearing the elevated stocks
on paper. There are loud demands in both
journals that Manhattan stock shall be
wiped out. Sage threatens to extend the
Metropolitan structure down Broad street,
so as to fight the Elevated, and Field pretends
that he wants the Elevated back so as to
ruin the Metropolitan. We venture to pre¬
dict, however^ that the Manhattan Company
will not be wiped out, and that there wiU be
no conflict between the Metropolitan and
Elevated systems, for the very good reason
that the insiders in all three companies have
the same interests, and are working for the
same ends. There is no doubt that ,some
scheme is afoot for making our elevated road
system the terminus of certain Western and
Southwestern trunk lines. The weakness of
the Vanderbilt stocks is partly due to the fact
that other trunk lines will have as good, if
not even better, access to all parts of the
island than has the Central road. The Hud¬
son River tunnel wiU bring this about, in
time, for aU the roads which are now stopped
on the banks of the Hudson; but there are a