September 6, 1884





The Record and Guide.





905





THE   RECORD  AND   GUIDE.

Publiahed every Saturday.
191   Broadwray,   N.   Y.





TERMS:

one: tear, ia advance, SIX DOLLARS.

CommunicatlODS should be addressed to

C. W.   SWEET,   191   Broadway.

J. T. LINDSEY. Business Manager.





SEPTEMBER 6, 1884.





The stock market atill hesitaleB. It ia awaiting news from the
corn fields. If tbere should be no early frost there will be little or
no falling off in vaiues, but the recovery to any higher prices will
he alow, even if all the crops turn out better tban ia expected.
The liquidation we have passed through has been bo serious tbat a
prompt recovery of confidence is not to be expected. But an
assurance of plenty of food and the materials for clothing will be
a good thing in itself and eventually help the general trade of tbe
country.





The acientista who are in convention at Philadelphia are to be
commiserated. That city in summer time is one of the hottest
localities thia aide of Hades. Visitors to the Centennial Exhibition
in the summer of 1876 will recall how suffocatingly hot and un¬
wholesome was the chief city of Pennsylvania. It ie a pleasant
enough place in the fall and spring seasons, and all who visit its
noble Fairmont Park are sure to come away witb pleaaaut remin¬
iscences, but the city's situation iaao enclosed that in warm weather
it is a very uncomfortable place. Yet at this hot season an elec¬
trical exhibition is under way and quite a number of distinguished
British scientists are at another convention and will go back with
a most erroneous idea of our climate. New York is tbe place to
hold conventions in summer time. No one need be bot here for
more than a few hours, aa Long Branch and Coney Island and
other cool places are only a few mileii away.





The laat Legislature authorized the appointment of a conimission
to thoroughly inspect our city tenement houses. The work ha? been
commenced, and the flve inspectors who have been employed have
thoroughly examined over two hundred houses. One inspector will
give a detailed report of the plumbing, and Dr. Anna E. Daniels is
making a special study of the effect of tenement life on the health
of women and children, also in how far cigar making and other
employments are detrimental to health.





This commission ought to collect aome very valuable statistica,
but there is danger that sentimentalists and people with precon¬
ceived theories may use the reports for unwise purposes. Our
State and local government should see to it that all residences, for
both rich and poori are properly constructed. Fever nests and
unwholesome habitations should not be tolerated in any civilized
community. But we protest in advance against any ofiicial recog¬
nition of views such as those of Prof. Adler, who wishes to reduce
rents for the poor hy artificial machinery. Reducing the profits of
landlords would simply put a stop to house building and the
improvements of the tenements themselves. If capitalists cannot
be sure of the eame return for money invested in tenement build¬
ing as in other business, they will abandon that field to the event¬
ual disadvantage of the poor themselves.                     ^





The true solution of the tenement house question, as of the labor
problem itselft is to thoroughly educate the children of the poorer
members of the community, and then to pay laborers a fair day's
wages for a fair day's work. If the working people are intelligent,
tbey will know enough not to live in unwholesome quarters, and
if they are in receipt of good wages, they can afford to pay reason¬
able rents for comfortable apartments.





Germany is forging to the front aa a gieat colonizing and mari¬
time power. Chancellor Bit-marck and Premier Ferry have appar¬
ently entered into an alliance to compete with Great Britain in
annexing distant regions and opening up countries to a commerce
other tban that controllea by BriliBh capital. It is now very clear
that the Madagascar, Tonquin and Chinese wars were entered into
by the French government at the instigation of the great German
statesman. Kossuth, the Hungarian, is reported as saying that
France " haa no future as a colonizing power," History endorses
hie judgment on that point. It would seem as if the French cou-
questa abroad must finally fall into the hands of Germany. The
latter, tbough as yet confined to an inland territory, undoubtedly
pOBiesBeis the people and the genius for an extended commerce,





and for planting colonies in distant regions. Already there is an
angry feeling between Germany and Great Britain, due to the
newly developed maritime enterprise of the former, and the time
may come when there will he a collision between these two powers.





A city paper suggests that the United States may eventually
profit by the war between France and China—but how ? We have
no ships of our own, and what is quite as needful for a foreign
trade, no coaling stations in the Pacific Ocean. Were any American
statesman to propose the annexation of the Sandwich Islands or
the purchase of a port or ports on the coast of Asia, to lay the
foundation for future maritime enterprize, the cry of "job"
would be raised by all the newspapers and he would be driven
from public life. Until there is a change in the public temper our
government will never dream of emulating that of Great Britain,
Germany and France in endeavoring to extend our commerce and
secure positions in distant seas where our vessels could find a refuge
and aecure needed supplies.





The leading tax payers were conspicuous by their absence from
the mass meeting to protest against the action of the Aldermen in
giving away the franchise for a horse-car line in Broadway, but of
course all good citizens sympathized with the object of the meet¬
ing. The Aldermen were, in all human probability, bribed for the
votes they gave for that measure, and if New York was a frontier
town they would have stood a good chance of being lynched for
their misconduct. At the same time it will not be an unmixed
misfortune if " Jake " Sharpe and the Seventh avenue company
get the franchise. It will rid Broadway of the omnibus nuisance,
and down-town passengers can reach the upper part of the city by
the Broadway and Seventh avenue connection on the west side.
This could not be done by an independent company. The offer of
the cable company of $1,000,000 was probably a bluff, but the cable
system has uot as yet been tried in New York. If once established
upon Broadway it might interfere with other and greater improve¬
ments, such for instance as the proposed Arcade road. But the
whole matter is a muddle and a disgrace to the local government
of the city. It will result, howcver, in still further curtailing the
power of the Aldermen, which we have always regarded as desir¬
able.





The Paulist Fathers' Church.

Tbe unfinished church of St. Paul, at Ninth avenue and Sixtieth
street, is one of the most noteworthy of the new buildings on the
west side, or indeed in the city. The architect is Mr. O'Rourke,
of Newark.

It is not, however, the architecture of the church that is the
most noticeable fact about it, but the extraordinary solidity,
massiveness and costliness of the construction. It is of great size,
the total length being 385 feet, the breadth outside being i35 feet,
and inside 113, of which 60 feet are given to the nave aud 26 to
each aisle. The thickness of the side walls ia thus ej^ feet for
each. In thu western towers the walls are stiil thicker. These
enormous walls are of aoUd stone, a fact without any precedent
we believe in New York buildinga. Brickwork is only used in
turning the arches tunnelled through the towers to the central
porch and in the clerestory walls, which are lined with brick,
though faced on the outside with stone.

It is evident that such a construction must be enormously costly,
and one is not surprised to learn that the bare walls which alone
are visible, wiih scarcely any carved decoration and without the
towers, have cost half a million, Tbe costliness ia increased by the
peculiar intractableness of the material, a very dark granite, quar¬
ried at Tarrytown. In depth and variety of color, no other granite
we know of is equal to it, and, when polished, none would be more
effective. Its use here is confined to the facing of the walls,
where it is laid up rough faced, the water tablea and strings, which
are tooled, being of a lighter granite and the wrought work about
the openings of limestone. This latter material is the only stone
which appears in the interior, where it is used for the nave piers,
alternately polygonal and round, the wall surface being every¬
where enveloped in plaster. The apparent ceiling of the nave is a
plastered barrel vault, the conatruction of the roof being framed
in timber, which in such a span ought to be an impressive piece
of architecture if expoaed and well designed. Each bay of the
aisles is ceiled with a domical vault in wood with an opening at
the apex, receiving light from a skylight in the flat aiale roof.
These bulla-eyes are the only means of lighting tbe chapels, one of
which occupies each bay, the aisle walla being absolutely blind,
and the nave ia lighted from the windows of the clerestory alone,
which are continued around the pentagonal apse. That part of the
aisle which is not absorbed by the chasels is a passageway merely,
the seating being apparently designed to be confined to the ample
nave.

The church is thus as simple as possible in plan, being Without
transepts, a nave and aisles of eight bays, with the oave prolonged
into a pentagonal apsei    It is neverthelees tery impiesBlTe hj