March 6, 1886





The   Record  and  Guide.





277





THE   RECORD   AND   GUIDE,

Published every Saturday.

191 Broad^T^av, 3Sr. "Y,

Onr Telephone Call is      ....      .      JOHN 3TO.

TERMS:

ONE YEAR, in advance, SIX DOLLARS.

Communications should be addressed to

C. W. SWEET, 191 Broadway.

J. T. LINDSEY, Business Manager.





Vol. XXXVII.





MARCH 6, 1886.





No. 938.





Iti a special article attention is called to the remarkable real
estate and buKdiag movement which is now under way in New
York city and vicinity. As the same phenomenon is observed in
other large cities it follows tliat the general trade of the country
must be in a hopeful condition. The building of new houses and
liberal buying of real estate never occurs in dull times, or when the
business outlook is unpromising. Manufacturers are generally
doing well. The consumptive demand for goods is larger than ii
has beon for year^. Toe working classes are asking and getting
better wages. Ifc follows from these facts that, on the whole, we
are fairly prosperous on this side of the Atlantic. Our only draw¬
back is the depressed condition of industries in Europe. The
working class there, who are the best customers for our grain and
cotton, are so impoverished that they cannot pay for as much food
or wear so much cotton goods as. in former years, when they had
better employment and made more money. As the nations which
are the most distressed have all the benefits of a single gold standard,
while we continue the coinage of silver, it would seem as if the
contrasting state of trade on both sides of the Atlantic had something
to do with the battle of the standards.





the franchise of seventy miles of road in New York to the Cable
Company. If this enterprise succeeds it will be a great accommo¬
dation to New Yorkers, for pasaengers will be able to travel to any
part of the city for five cents by a system of transfer checks ; and
tbey will be carried far more rapidly than by the existing horse-car
system. Bat it is monstrous, if the popular suspicion is justified,
that it is the aldermen who wUl benefit by the giving of this city
franchise and not the treasury. If we had an honest and respon¬
sible system of local goverment, the right to lay tracks and run
cables would be worth a large sum of money, in addition to the
royalty which the company should pay out of its gross receipts into
the city treasury.





The stoppage of local travel yesterday, caused by the general
strike of the employes of the horse-car companies of this city and
Brooklyn, was little less than a public calamity, and provision
should at once be made to prevent the repetition of any such occur¬
rence. The parties to blame primarily are the stockholders and
managers of the roads of the companies who refused to grant
the just demrnds of the men. Two dollars a day for twelve hours'
work, to drivers and conductors liable to be exposed to such terri¬
ble weather as we have had during the past month, is not too much
to ask. Indeed, it is too little ; and there ought to be a provision
in every future charter granted to any corporation asking special
privileges from the State or municipality that the employes should
receive a "fair day's wages for a fair day's work." Public senti¬
ment ought to be on the side of the men, unless tlie latter forfeit it
by riotous conduct or extravagant demands. It is notorious that
upon the capital actually expended on the street car lines handsome
dividends can be declared on fares of two and three cents per pas¬
senger. But all the horse-car stocks have been enormously watered,
which has not prevented the companies from declaring from 8 to
15 per cent, on the same to the fortunate stockholders. The com¬
panies could well afford to pay even better wages and demand less
work, and still continue paying dividends greater than is expected

in any average business.

--------«--------

In these columns we have repeatedly urged that it would be a
wise step on the part of the State and city governments to make
the employes of the State railroads and city horse-car companies a
part of the police force. They should be uniformed, their wages
and hours made a matter of State regulation, and then we would
never be in danger of a strike ; while, in the event of riots, there
would be a reserve police force to fall back on which would prove
more effective in dealing with a mob than an equal number
of militiamen. Of course, if under State or city control, there
could be no Knights of Labor or trade union interference any more
than there is in the existing police department. Government
employes never strike on the continent of Europe; the employes
of the railroad are generally soldiers, or, at least, in uniform and
subject to military discipline. What an advantage it would have
been to this country if in 1877 the railroad employes were under
the orders of the central or State governments. There would
have been no riots such as then imperilled the peace and prop¬
erty of so many States in the Union. As for the present trouble,
the best way to end it is for the public to insist that the company
shall treat their employes fairly; but the latter should under¬
stand that there must be no violence.





If the Broadway franchise for running horse-cars is taken away
from " Jake" Sharp and his friends, why should not the city itself
assume the ownership and reap the profit from the enormous pas¬
senger traffic of our great thoroughfares ? Tlie municipality could
settle with private owners of the stock on a fair basis, and the pos¬
session of this, which may be called the trunk line of the city
horse-car system, would put our local authorities in a place where
they could command the situation. It would put a check on the
rapacity of not only the horse-car companies, but of the new cable
company. There need be no more waste in running a line of horse~
cars than in controling a fire, police or water department. It is
when corporate interests come into play that local government is
seen at its worst. Our post-office departn-ent, for instance, is a
model of cheapness and efficiency. It is the contractors and cor¬
porations which are the evil influences in our government work of
all kinds. Where the officers of the national State or local govern¬
ments steal a cent in dealing directly with the public, the contractor
or the corporation rake in their dishonest gains by the thousands
of dollars.





David Dudley Field, in advocating the adoption of the civil code
before a committee of the Legislature, stated that in New York
city there were 0,000 lawyers and 5,000 more in other parts of this
State. France, with a population of 38,000,000, has only 6,000
lawyers in all. The extraordinary number of lawyers in the United
States is probably due to the fact that that profession practically
has a monopoly of the government of the country. Our presidents,
cabinet ministers, governors, members of the National and State
Legislature, as well as the great bulk of the minor officials, have
been and are almost exclusively lawyers. Then we have more law
and litigation than any nation on earth; while the profession exacts
far more for their services here than elsewhere. This multiplicity
of lawyers is a positive danger to tbe community. The corruption
in public life is in a great measure due to the number of lawyers
who must make a living in manipulating the business interests of
the community. It is on evidence that Jake Sharp spent only
$160,000 in constructing the Broadway Railroad. To get permis¬
sion to do so he paid out $375,000 to lawyers.





The failure to adopt the civil code in this State shows how pow¬
erful is the baser element in the legal profession. The constitution
adopted in 1846 provided for the codifying of our laws. David
Dudley Field, William Curtis Noyes and A. W. Bradford were
appointed to carry out the constitutional requirements. They were
all lawyers of first-class ability. Their work was completed in 1856.
The new code is simply a condensed statement of the statute law
relating to civil cases, which is otherwise only to be found by
examining thousands of law books. The aim was simply to let the
non-professional public know what the law really was. The better
class of lawyers have always favored the adoption of the code, but
their efforts have been thwarted for thirty j ears, simply because
those who have profited by the old system and the pettifoggers were
able to defeat the matter year after year in a Legislature composed
of lawyers like themselves. The code is up again for adoption this
year, and it certainly ought to be indorsed by the Legislature.





The aldermen don't seem to scare worth a cent. Notwithstand¬
ing the attitude of the press and public anent the recent disclos¬
ures, the existing Board of Aldermen have deliberately voted away





The controversy betvreen the President and the Senate on the
office-holding question is not creditable to the members of our
highest legislative chamber. It is clearly the prerogative of the
President to appoint, and for the Senate to reject or confirm. The
present Executive has made so few removals and has been so care¬
ful in his appointments, so much so as to offend his own party,
that it puts the Republican majority in anything but a favorable
light when they seek to coerce the President to retain their parti¬
sans in office. The great mass of the office-holding body are still
Republicans, although that party has not more than half the voters,
and, in view of President Cleveland's conservatism in making
changes, the anti-administration party in the Senate should have
treated him with the utmost consideration. Senator Edmunds has
Tieretofore been regarded as a very superior type of a public man,
but the low party aims to which he devotes himself is calculated to
alienate the great body of Independents who care more for good
government than for party patronage.   President Cleveland has