June 18, 1887





The   Record  and  Guide.





829





THE   RECORD   AND   GUIDE,

Published every Saturday.

191 Broad^vay, IST. "Y.





Our Teleplione Call is





JOHN 370.





TERMS:

ONE YEIR, in advance, SIX DOLLARS.

Communications should be addressed to

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J. T. LINDSEY, Busmess Manager.





have been of immense benefit to this city, and the corporation has
certainly been managed in a liberal manner. The reduction of the
fares to flve cents for all hours was a wholly voluntary act, and it
is difficult to see what more the company could do to obtain public
favor. But the city ought to get some benefit from the additional
travel due to the large increase of its inhabitants. That "unearned''
increment should not all go into the pockets of Jay Gould, Cyrus
W. Field and their associates.





Vol. XXXIX.





JUNE 18, 1887.





No. 1,005





We hear so much about the speculation in Western cities that we
overlook the activity in real estate nearer home. Just now we are
building in New York almost as rapidly as in any centre of Western
population. While there is nothing approaching a boom in vacant
property, there is a marked increase of real estate sales in all the
suburbs of the city. There is an active movement in the region
between South Brooklyn and Coney Island. The projected elevated
road will open up a large country suitable for cheap residences.
East New York has been built up by the existing elevated road.
Our weekly list of transfers shows the remarkable growth of the
23d and the 24th Wards. At its present rate of progress New
Rocheile, for instance, will double its population in a few years.
Matters in the real estate line around New York look veary healthy
just at this time.





The amended Buildiug law has been signed by Governor HiU
during the past week, and will go into effect within thirty days,
about the 15th of July. TJie new enactment is too voluminous for
publication in our columns, but will be issued with explanatory
notes and careful editing within a brief period. The Governor has
also signed the bill making appropriations for Central, Morning¬
side and other up-town parks. What the enactment is expected to
effect will be found in the circular issued by the Morningside Park
Association, which will be found in another column. During the
past week Dwight H. Olmsted and others have in open conference
urged the Governor to sign the bill providing for block indexing,
but up to the time of going to press he has taken no action.





Employers who have objected to trades unions have found
that the way to effectively fight these organizations is to
form unions themselves. They have even gone further and
are organizing the outside workmen who have so far refused
to join the regular trades unions. Combinations and co-operate
action seem to be the prevailing method for transacting
business in our own modern world. What distinguishes this
industrial era above all that have preceded it is the readiness with
which people enter into combinations in order to effect certain
ends., While protesting against socialism the leaders in the politi¬
cal and business worlds make use of socialistic methods to benefit
themselves or their associates. Socialism may be defined as the
subordination of the individual to some corporate body for its own
benefit and that of its fellows.





The written opinion of the Interstate Commerce Commission on
the long and short haul clause of the law it is their duty to enforce
is very satisfactory to railroad people as well as to the general
public, and justifies the vagueness of the provision itself, which
was so framed as to be liable to a liberal interpretation. Precision
in laws is usually a good thing, especially where a moral question
is involved, but business considerations are often of a character to
forbid definiteness of,legal statement. If the corporations obey this
law honestly it will be a good thing for themselves as well as their
business patrons, and this fact is now being universally recognized
by the press. But what a mess our New York journals made of it
in discussing this matter. They bitterly denounced the law, and
predicted all manner of evil consequences if it was enacted. They
were as wrong in this as they were in their prophecies of the evil
results of the silver coinage act. Their judgment of public meas¬
ures is very often at fault.





Organizations known as Trusts is a new form of corporation which
seems destined to wield a great influence in the future of business.
We allude to such institutions as the Standard Oil Trusts, the
Cotton Trusts, the Cattle Trusts and the proposed India Rubber
Trusts. It is the aim of these various trusts to monopolize the
business in which they are severally intrusted. These are not legal
bodies, for noState can confer the powers upon them as corporations
with a charter, as they really wield without any legal authorization.
The Standard Oil Trust does things which would not be punishable in
a chartered company, yet it is not an illegal institution; it is simply
extra-legal. These trusts will make enemies, for they crush out
rivals and monopolize certain industries. Some time or other they
will come under the supervision of the law, and it rauy be that the
whole matter may be dealt in by Congress, for petroleum, cotton
seed oil, cattle and India rubber affects the Interstate commerce
of the country, which it is the duty of Congress rather than the
States to legislate for.





Governor Hill has been blamed for signing the bill permitting
the gas company to charge $2 outside of the city limits for the
same servibe that they are restricted from charging over f 1.60 in
the city proper. But in this the Governor is clearly right, for a
gas service in a spare settlement naturally costs more than where
the houses are close together. There is, however, such a prejudice
against corporations that it is difficult to pass any enactment doing
them justice. There are some back taxes on the Western Union
Telegraph Company which should never have been levied, as they
have no warrant in law or natural equity; but it is impossible to
get a bill through the Legislature to perform an act of simple justice
to a corporation. For this deep-seated prejudice the corporations
are themselves to blame; but leading city journals ought to be
above the cheap demagoguery of condemning Governor Hill for
signing a very proper enactment, even though an obnoxious gas
company should get the benefit of it.





The Rapid Transit Commissioners are fully justified in asking
the Manhattan Elevated Company to pay a bonus for the privilege
of extending its lines to the various city ferries. Gould, Field &
Co. have an immensely valuable franchise in their control of the
stock of the elevated roads, and they ought to be willing to pay a
fair proportion of the additional incomes they will receive by the
new extensions. The Record and Guide, however, must not be
understood as in any way condemning the elevated roads.   They





Many of the old settlers of Mount Desert look back with regret at lost
opportunities. A few hundred dollars wisely expended ten years ago
would make the happy possessor a millionaire to-day. A land broker here
recently told your correspondent that he was offered 150 acres of land a
few years ago, located on Main street, for $000 " I thought," said he,
" that an enormous price then for a few acres of rocks and stumps. Now
that same tract would sell at least for $.500,000." He also said that he
could have purchased twenty years ago the centre tract of land which
extends from Cromwell's Harbor to Great Head, embracing hundreds of
acres, for twenty-five cents per acre. " And," he said, " ir, was offered me
at that figure and the owners fairly urged me to take it, but 1 refused.
See what it will bring to-day. This land is worth at the least calculation
$6,000 per acre.—Exchange.

The above and similar facts direct attention to the heavy invest¬
ments which are constantly taking place along our seacoasts.
There is practically a corner not only on the Atlantic Ocoan front,
but on the bays and sounds whicli have outlets to the ocean and
are available for human habitations. As the country grows people
who acquire wealth in the interior will want a summer "cottage
by the sea." There has been remarkable advances in the price of
property not only on the coast proper, but on inclosed waters like
Long Island Sound. No matter how remote the points on the
seashore may be from centres of population or railway facilities, if
they are habitable or have a bathing beach or a marine view, they
are sure in time to be in demand. Man is almost an amphibious
animal. The longer he remains on the land the more he craves
the water. When this country has 300,000,000 of inhabitants water
frohts will be as costly as lots on 5th avenue, but of course that
will not be in our day.





The architects are still discussing with interest the kind of struc¬
ture the proposed Protestant Cathedral ought to be. That it should
be some form of Gothic is the general verdict. There is no other
kind of building, they say, suitable for Christian worship. But it
should be borne in mind that the proposed edifice is to be some¬
thing more than a building in which to conduct a ritualistic cere¬
monial. It is designed to be a place where audiences can be ad¬
dressed, and which will serve as a sepulchre for the distinguished
dead of the nation. These two latter uses involve a wide depart¬
ure from the Middle Age cathedral, which was intended almost
entirely for ceremonial uses.





It is of course quite natural for our architects to think that no
temple of worship can take any other shape than that of a Gothic
cathedral. It is without exception the ideal edifice for the ortho¬
dox Christian worshipper.   But it does not follow that religion