August 23, 1885





The   Record   and   Guide.





927





THE   RECORD   AND   GUIDE,

Published every Saturday.

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Vol. XXXVI.





AUGUST 22, 1885.





No. 910





The favoraVde outlook for the iron trade reported from Pittsburg
this week is only the inevitable corollary to the nioveraent for au
agreement among the railroads. The iron industry, the most
important manufacturing industry in the United States for stimu¬
lating exchange, is so directly dependent on the railroads for its
prosperity that its late prostration must bo charged exclnsively to
the railroad war with the consequent partial cessation of railway
construction and repairs. But with the adjustment of the railway
differences and increased earnings must come a return of the
demands on tiie iron mills. We are told already that orders are
increasing rapidly and tliat many of the Pittsburg mills are run¬
ning on double time. But this may be interpreted as not Pittsburg
news exclusively. The improvement will be universal, and with
it will come an increased demand upon tlie products of tho woollen
and cotton mills, the shoe factories and the farms. All branches of
industry will be stimulated. It is curious to see how elaborately men
reason to attribute their misfortunes to wrong causes. There never
should have been a doubt of tho principal cause of the depression
of the past two years, and If the railway managers are not leading
us on a false scent, a. circumstance hardly conceivable, we are
nearly at the end of the very hard times. We think, too, that some
experience has beeu gained whicli will render the coming boom
more durable than the last.





That the Harlem district of this city is growing populous enough
to a,ssert itself is evident in the statement tliat the New York
Central & Hudsou River Railroad is preparing to erect a large
station at Mott Haven, which, for all practical purposes, shall serve
as a terminal depot. This will be extremely good news for the
people of the annexed district; and if it could be supplemented
with the further statement that all the dilapidated and tumble¬
down stations of the Harlem road, north of the Harlem River, are to
be replaced by elegant little structures surrounded by neat parks,
after the model of the station houses of the Central Railroad of
New Jersey, they would have still greater reason to rejoice. The
New York Central & Hudson River Railroad, whicli, of course,
includes practically the Harlem road, is getting rich now. Its
managers will soon have the resources of the West Shore road to
help them, aud they should be liberal in providing elegant accom¬
modations for their passengers. The stations in question are cred¬
itable neither to the railroad which they serve nor to the city whicli
they fail to decorate. The oldest inhabitant can hardly remember
when they were built, and, unless they are replaced, the youngest
inhabitant w^ill hardly come to years of discretion before they
tumble down.





The strikes among workmen, reported from  the West  on the
Gould system of railroads, and witnessed on a limited scale also   in
the cloakmaking and other trades of  this city, are echoes of the
storm which,  for two years  jjast and  more, has  been  reducing
wages and causing general industrial demoralization.    Since work¬
men are organized, and bound by the purposes of their organizatitm
to resist reductions, such incidents are inevitable when the market
is falling; but we do not believe that, in the present instance, the
contest will be very prolonged or the results very mischievous. The
general feeling is hopeful, and as business is really improving, and
the prices of commodities are either rising or at the turning pomt
of the tide, there is really no necessity for any further reductions in
wages.    Even employers who but recently thought it necessary to
make reductions may now very well reconsider their action, and, in
many instances, mark up the totals of their pay-rolls with the prices
of their commodities.    It happens, unfortunately, that there are too
many ignorant leaders  in  the different labor organizations, with
also too mauy men of equally feeble judgment among employers;
and the perversity of ignorance  in  wrong-doing is always some¬
thing remarkable.    But,   in  this instance,  the necessities of the
combatants will be likely to serve us a good turn.    Neither side to
the controversy can afford to stand off and fail  to take  advantaee
of the opportunities which all men of sober judgm ont see api'iiK-ch-

ingf   Tbe road to compromise sIiquIv!; tHerafii^e, bt^ ^^j,  Thf- sit¬





uation now, compared with the situation at the time of the tele¬
graphers' strike, two jears ago, is greatly changed. Then we were
just at the beginning of troubled waters; now we are emerging on
the opposite side of the c3'clone after having weathered the worst
l)art of the blow.

--------•--------

The report made to the American Bar Association, on ** The Delay
and Uncertainty in Judicial AJministration," by Mr. David Dud¬
ley Field, recalls a subject that has been very much discussed to
very little purpose. The law's delay was one of the causes that
led Hamlet to palliate if not to defend suicide; and a lawsuit is a
no more prompt process now than in the days of Shakespeare,
In fact we doubt if it is so prompt. The obstacles in the way of
swift justice are physical as well as administrative, and the faster
you remove them the faster you will pile up new obstructions.
Does this declaration demand explaining':' The explanation is easy.
Not one-half, possibly not one-fourth the lawsuits are brought that
would be brought were legal processes simplified aud made less
expensive. Could the ideal system of justice be established there
is hardly a subject of dispute that could be made to involve even
so much as a point of honor that might not be taken lo court for
adjudication. What, then, must result? Why, were civil suits
settled as promptly as a drunken and disorderly conduct case before
a New York police justice, the court calender would soon become
so long that were we even to expect prompt decisions we would
have to more than duplicate the number of courts. This is a quar¬
relsome world. The law's delay is not, therefore, it will be seen, alto¬
gether an evil. Upon the whole it probably conduces to the culti¬
vation of a compromising spirit and saves bad blood.





The discussion about the Grant monument, to which we contri¬
bute some I'emarks this week, has had the effect of making people
consider the conditions of our public sculpture. Tliis is thus far
confined to the Central Park, not that a park is the best place for
portrait-statues, but there is no other. It is diflicult to secure a
good site for a statue in the business quarter of the town, although
one has latelj' been found in Wall street for Ward's Washington.
It is rather odd that tlie best site in all New Y^ork for a piece of
heroic statuary should have beeu overlooked—we mean the towers
of the Brooklyn Bridge. The towers themselves have been criticised
as looking unfinished bj- reason of the flat surface at the top. If
they were surmounted with sculpture this defect would disappear,
since the top would seem to have been left flat as a base for the
sculpture. A bronze group, of colossal size, on the summit of
either tower, would certainly have as fine a site as can be found
anywhere in the world. The weight of such a group would be a
trifle, and so far as it had any effect at all would probably be a
positive advantage from an engineering point of view. Portrait-
statues would be comparatively ineffective, although one colossal
figure over each pier would do something to relieve the ungainliness
of the tower tlius surmounted. We have no sculptor who has
given evidence of ability to design such a group as an allegory, say,
of the Re-union, which might, in proper liands, be made a most
impressive memorial to Grant. The obvious criticism, that if one of
the towers were completed both ought to be, would bring its own
answer. It would not be many years after one group was com¬
pleted l»efore another confronted it from the opposite eminence.





If the Daft Electric Motor Company, which is to make a trial of
its electrical engine on the Ninth Avenue Elevated Road in a few
days, succeeds in demonstrating the practicability of the invention,
a new era will dawn for the system of elevated railroads. They are
unpopular now for three reasons: tirst, because they are too noisy;
second, because they are too dirty, and, third, because they are
unsightly. The first and second of these objections the Daft Com¬
pany promises to remove. There will be no more coal-dust, cinders,
greasy water and oil, to make well-dressed foot passengers on the
streets frantic if the electric motor can be made to take the
place of the steam locomotive. The noise may not decrease so much
as we are taught to expect, the rattle and thunder of the trains
coming, we think, more from the cars than from tlie engine. But
there will be a cessation of the rush of escaping steam and some¬
thing of a decrease in the noise of clanking wheels. These improve¬
ments alone will go far to restore the roads to public favor, already
recognized as the pleasantest possible means of transit. With regard
to the unsightly character of the elevated structures, that, of course,
is an objection which no motor can remove, and the scarecrows are
in possession of several of our chief avenues. But they are not
necessarily unsightly. An elevated road, if tastefully designed,
could be made an ornament to any street—to Broad way, for example ;
and after the suppression of the noise and filth there is no reason
why they should not be constructed wherever there are passengers
to carry.

It is a little remarkable, when you think of it, that the pedestal
for the Barthokli statue has been permitted to reach its present
altitiide \vith9ut the discovery that thp eugiweeri Geni Cbas. P*