August 8, 1885





The   Record   and   Guide.





879





THE   RECORD   AND   GUIDE,

Published every Saturday.

IQl Broadwav, IST. IT."

Onr Telephone Call Is.....JOHN 370.





TERMS:

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C. W. SWEET, 191 Broadway.

J. T. LINDSEY, Business Manager,





Vol. XXXVI.





AUGUST 8, 1885.





No. 908





The firmness displayed by the stock market, notwithstanding the
slight apparent effort made at maintaining the recent increase in
quotations, shows the confidence in the adjustment of the railway
differences felt by those who are best situated to form a judgment.
We say those best situated to form a judgment because the stock
market was long since deserted by the general run of buyers and
has been left in the hands of men who may be called professional
stock dealers, and whose success or failure may be supposed to
depend on their careful study of all the conditions that influence
values favorably or unfavorably. It is the opinion of these men
that is at present maintaining quotations at the advanced figures,
for the public have not yet returned to the market, and will not
return until all the proposed arrangements between the railroads are
consummated. They have been too often deceived during the last
two or three years to take anything on credit. But when the con¬
ditions are made through which they can be brought back, still
another sharp rise in the market must follow, and we are likely to
see the activity of a few years ago repeated.





John Bright, of England, warmly endorses the land reform
programme formulated by Mr. Arthur Arnold, which embraces the
following points: (1) Abolition of primogeniture; (2) Abolition of
copyhold and customary tenure; (3) Prohibition of settlements of
land on unborn persons and the power of creating life estates in
land; (4) Conveyance by registration—all the interests in the prop¬
erty on record to be registered; (5) Sale of encumbered estates. Mr.
Bright think^ the time is ripe for all these reforms to be carried*
Great Britain will then have free trade in land as in other kinds of
property. In commending this land reform project the London
Daily News particularly endorses the registration suggestion which,
it says, is to be found in perfection under the Torren's laws in New
Zealand. It quotes Mr. Mundella as saying that he was personally
cognizant of the ease and cheapness of land transfer in that colony.
He saw valuable parcels conveyed in a few hours. It could even be
done by post. All the above-mentioned authorities seem to think
that the time was rapidly coming when land could be trans/erred
as easily in England as in New Zealand. The Old World may get
ahead of the New in this matter.





During several years past it has been evident that a perception
of the advantages of bi-metallism has been growing in England.
The mono-metallists of that country seem to be composed mainly
either of men who, like Bonamv Price, are professional economists
without business training, or merely business men whose economic
studies have been pursued in banking houses. The bi-metallists,
on the other hand, are men of both practical and theoretical train¬
ing, who are not merely able to hold to good opinions but to give
their reasons. We are glad to welcome another sign that those
who fa.vor a narrow metallic foundation for a circulating medium
in England are not so firmly secure in their position as they would
have us believe. A despatch tells us that the council of the Man¬
chester Chamber of Commerce has decided to ask for a goveranient
inquiry into the monetary question, and that the London Chamber
of Commerce is also in favor of the same course. This is reported
as a distinct victory for the bi-metallists, and the further statement
that it is expected that the government will appoint a special com¬
mission on the subject is a still more favorable symptom. The
bi-metallists of this country have only to stand firm in their deter¬
mination to permit no steps backward in their efforts at securing at
once free and sound currency conditions and their day of success
will not be far distant.    We can always win when we persist.





The long-projected Metropolitan Railway of Paris will soon be
under construction. It is to cost 210,000,000 francs, and is to run
on the east and west sides of the Seine. It is also to be built north
and south. Circular trains will be run on the east bank of the
Seine so that every part of the metropolis will be provided for. So
far New York. London and Berlin are the only great cities that
have intermural steam accommodations. Paris will soon have as
good facilities as either of them, but when the Brooklyn system of





elevated roads is completed and a connection is made at the Brooklyn
Bridge with the New York *• L " road, this city will have the pleas-
antest internal travel of any of the large cities. Still our elevated
roads do not meet all the requirements. We want more rapid
transit, and this will in time be furnished by a steam road under
Broadway, connected with the Grand Central Depot.





The arrangements for the funeral of General Gfa.nt have, for the
most part, been dignified and suitable. The most conspicuous
exceptions to this rule have been furnished by Dr. Newman and
Commissioner Squire. The disgust expressed by the press and by
all intelligent persons for the meaningless doggerel affixed by the
Commissioner of Public Works to the front of the City Hall, had
no effect upon the official bard, and the verses defaced the building
when the body of General Grant was carried into it. The Mayor's
positive order for the removal of the rubbish was received by the
Commissioner with a very bad grace, and it is said that the Mayor
himself employed the workmen who finally took it down. As for Dr.
Newman, one ought not to judge too harshly a minister " out of a
job," to whom advertising is almost a necessity. No doubt Dr.
Newman had a sincere admiration and liking for General Grant,
but it seems that these sentiments were accompanied by a keen
sense of the value to himself of all the publicity that could be
extracted from the death of his patron. His absence from the death¬
bed scene was evidently a great blow to him, but he recovered him¬
self in time to be the most conspicuous figure in the subsequent
ceremonies and to pronounce a most absurd and indiscriminate
eulogy.





It was fortunate for the impressiveness of the ceremonies that
General Grant had been restored to the retired list of the army so
that there could be a military funeral. If any of the municipal
organizations represented in the procession had had charge of it it
would have been hopelessly vulgarized. The arrangements for a
military funeral being fixed by army regulations, the same guaran¬
tee against bad taste is provided that is afforded in ordinary burials
by a liturgical service aa opposed to the extemporaneous effusions of
a minister who may or may not have sense and tact enough to
avoid indecorum. It is time, however, that the obsolete barbarism
of ** lying in state" should be done away with in public funerals.
The exposure of a dead body to a promiscuous crowd is a repulsive
performance. Moreover, there cannot be much reverential senti¬
ment left in people who have been for an hour pushing for places
in a line, and who are finally hustled past the remains of a great
man by policemen who exhibit about as much sense that tbe occas¬
ion is a solemnity as if they were supervising a picnic at Jones's
Wood. As a matter of fact the motive of most of the crowd who
went to view General Grant's remains seemed to be a gaping
curiosity. They went in order to say that they had gone. Some¬
what more respectable was the motive of those who took their
children to see the remains. To a child of to-day who lives to be
an old man or old woman, the remembrance of having witnessed
General Grant's funeral w ill be worth having. But it is not neces¬
sary for this purpose that the remains should be exposed.

The suit of sable worn by New York during the present season
of mourning has not looked, upon the whole, becoming. A few
buildings were draped with considerable taste, but in the great
majority of instances the draping has been without either expres¬
sion or meaning, mere fluttering rags of white and black. The
draping upon the Herald building, for example, has looked as if
arranged by the printer's devil, and many another equally pre¬
tentious building is scarcely better in appearance. We wish to
make a suggestion. When an exterior is to be decorated for any
occasion, whether mourning or festive, the proprietors should go to
an artist and have a drawing of the building and decorations made
carefully in detail, and to this design the workmen should adhere.
This will be the only means of avoiding such tasteless, not to say
vulgar, designs as our streets have \pitnessed during the past two
weeks.    Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well.





The New York Tribune of Monday contained a dispatch from
Trenton which gave it as a rumor that the Baltimore & Ohio
Company, in their struggle to reach New York, had under con¬
sideration a plan for utilizing the New Jersey shore front on the
Kill-von-Kull, west of " Caven Point," meaning, no doubt, Con¬
stable's Point. This is evidently not true for several reasons.
First, the water along the north shore of the Kill-von-KuU is not
deep enough for the service of first-class shipping, and the Balti¬
more Company will not go to the expense of reaching the harbor of
New York for the purpose of availing themselves of second-class
accommodations. Second, the point in question is not accessible
from the west except across Newark Bay, and when the trains of
the Baltimore & Ohio road have got over this broad sheet of
water they would not be limited to the terminal resources of the
north shore of the Kill-von-KuU. Third, there is not deep water
enough south of and including the water front held by the Reading