July 21. 1888





Record  and   Guide.





915





<^,_____________________., ^   -

"^               '^            established'-^''wvrs;h2I'-^

De/oTEO jo fHL E^SIME . BuiLOIf/c ApcrilTECTJI^E .HoUSElfOLD DEGCify.noS.

B^J5l^/Ess aiJdThemes of Ge^JeiviI- I;Jtei\e5t







the passions and prejudices of the voters will not be unduly atim-
ulated.





PRICE, PER YEAR IN ADVANCE, SIX DOLLARS.

Published every Saturday.
TELEPHONE,          -          .          -          JOHN   370.

Communications should be addressed to

C. W. SWEET, 191   Broadway.

J. T. LINDSEY, Business Manager.





Vol. XLII.





JULY 21, 1888.





No. 1,062





Now Ready—The Index to the Conveyances and Projected
Buildings published in The Record and Guide during the first six
months of the ewrrent year. The Index is printed on extra heavy
paper, and, as usual, inchides New York and Kings Counties, and
is the most exhaustive ever published. The labor and expense
connected with the work has become so formidable that a charge of
fifty cents is made for this issue, as announced in these columns on
January 2\st last. Subscribers requiring copies should send in their
orders at once.





1





All tlie tendencies of modern commerce  are in the  direction of

minimizing the profits of the merchant and the middlemen. Tele¬
graph communication with distant countries has put an end to the
great profits reaped by the merchants in the pre-telegraphic age.
Time was, for instance, ■when tea wa~s a very profitable commodity
for merchants {o deal in; but there are no more gi-eat fortunes to
be made in that herb, since the Chinese dealers have kno^wn the price
by telegraph in all tlie tea consuming marts of the ■world. The
papers recently told of the destruction of immense quantities of
Southern fruit and vegetables. The New York commission men
refused to take them because the freight charges were too high, and
so thousands of tons of good food were thrown into the ocean. Cali¬
fornia growers of fr\iit have organized a union by whicli they send
ten car loads at a time to CMcago. They employ their o^wn agents
and sell their fiTiit directly to the jobbers and small dealers with¬
out the intervention of the middlemen.





The very excellent crop prospects of the West have given a firm¬
ness to Wall street securities this week to which it has long been a
stranger. Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa, all of wliich are great corn
producing States, have a better present outlook than any time since
the great corn year of 1880, and should the indications be reahzed
we may expect once more tu sec Wall street full of speculative
boomers and scliemers. Lately it has not been fashionable to do
anything in tliis locality, but just as bustles, hoop-skirts and poke-
bonnets come aud go, so return and go tlie fashions for speculating
in different commodities. General business is picking up, with
crders calling for deliveries of goods for fall consumption, and here
again everything is dependent largely upon the harvesting of a big
crop, as many orders now given would be cancelled should the out¬
look of the corn crop become less satisfactory. With nearly
7,000,000 bales of cotton wanted by the world, with a strong prob-
abiUty of 3,000,000,000 busliels of coru, and a wheat crop more than
enough, there is httle danger of anybody becoming much poorer
the coming year, no matter wlio shall be elected to the Presidency.





The fishermen of Jlonmouth Beach formerly sold their catch to
the middlemen for four or five cents a pound; but the same fish
cost the New York consumer anywhere from twelve to twenty
cents a pound. Now, however, the fishermen have their own
organization and agents in the larger markets of New York, who
sell the fish at fair prices. The dairymen in New York liave tried
to act together to get a better price for theii- milk, but so far they
have been beaten by a well-organized trust. The milkmen get only
two or two-and-a-half cents a quart for milk, while the consumer
pays eight or ten cents a quart. Tlie tendency everywhere is to get
rid of competition and the middleman.





There are mysterious intimations giv'en out in Wall street as to
gigantic combinations now under consideration in raih-oad circles.
If the programmes suggested are carried out practical consolida¬
tions will result which will affect over a thousand million of secur¬
ities. The gigantic "trusts," such as the Standard Oil Company,
will be dwarfed by the magnitude of the proposed railroad combina¬
tions. Our people have not woke up to the fact that the pm-chase
by the Canadian Pacific of the South Shore, Duluth & Atlantic,
otherwise the " Soo " road, and the other roads they will soon have
wiU give that foreign corporation a larger mileage in our country
than that of the New York Central and Lake Shore combined. It
is on the cards that the same enterprising and wealthy co'ncern will
have an outlet here in New York city. The Canadian Pacific is
backed up by the Dominion of Canada as well as by the greatest
money power in the world which has its headquarters in London.
This foreign coi-poration promises to be one of the most important
factors in our Amei-ican railroad system. Should these pending
schemes be carried out they will create a furore in WaU street
such as that famous locality has not seen in its past history.





It seema as if food products were getting dearer the world over.
Wheat aud corn command better prices than they have for three
years' past; and now comes tlie unwelcome news that next winter
will see a decided advance in the price of beef. According to Mr. de
Surrel, the French consul at Chicago, the losses of the cattle raisers
in the winter of 1886 and the summer of 1887 amounted to about
1,500,000 head. During 1887 there was a falling off in the annual
production of calves equal to 50 per cent. The difficulty of procur¬
ing sale for the cattle has kept the price down so far ; but when
the three aud fom--year-old cattle are due next year aud the year
after, it will be found that meat will be very source. Tliis will be
unfortunate in many ways. South America has been a formidable
competitor of tliia country in the wholesale meat markets of Europe,
and an advance in tlie price of our cattle would for a time give a
monopoly of the business to the Argentine Republic, and the other
South American States which grow such vast herds of cattle.





The present wiil probably be the tamest political contest for the
Presidency this country has seen since the election of Monroe.
There is not much antagonism to either of the candidates and they
evoke no personal enthusiasm. Had Blaine been in the field there
would have been a warm canvass, but there is no personal element
now likely to excite any feeling up to the close of the poll m Novem¬
ber. Nor is there really any principle at stake. The Mills biU is
not a free tx-ade measure and the amendments to the tafiff the
Republican Senate wiU propose will necessarily look to a reduction
of the impost duties. The Mills bill will pass the House by a small
majority and the counter proposition by the Senate will pass that
body before the end of August. The Republicans will propose the
abolition of the tobacco internal revenue tax, but so far as any prin¬
ciple ia concerned there will be about as much difference as between
" tweedledum and tweedledee." The Protectionists-will probably
make their fight on the Congressional candidates, and whether Mr.
Cleveland is elected or not we do not believe the next Congress will
contain any more free traders tJi^n does the present one. Wbat a
comfort it i? tO be able to antipipp.t6 3, PresideptJsl flection in wJuclj '





Apropos of the Argentine Repubhc, it is worttiy of note that the
gigantic system of public improvement, which the Republic under¬
took, has resulted in a way that entirely justifiies the apparently
reckless outlay. The railroads built under the auspices of the
government have rendered available the countless flocks and herds
of that country. Its domestic industry and its foreign commerce
have been wliolesomely stimulated. Indeed, the Argentine Republic
can now claim to be among the most prosperous and enterprising
countries on earth. But its policy has been entirely different from
that of the United States. True, we encourage home manufactures
by a burdensome tariff, and then we have favored railroad building
by grants of pubhc lands, but our government will do nothing for
commerce or for improving our harbors and waterways. The vast
trade of South America is monopolized by European nations.
Even when South American countries offered to share in the
expense of a steamship line between New York and the South
American ports our Congress and administration declined, not¬
withstanding its ob^vioua advantages. The total value of the trade of
the South American States is about $700,000,000. Of this Fi-ance
has 23 per cent., England 28 per cent., Belgium 14 per cent.. Ger¬
many 9 per cent., and tbe United States 6 per cent. Of the one
thousand steamships which arrived at the ports of Uruquay in 1883
only one was American.





This summer has been characterized by an unusual development
of the mosquito plague m the neighborhood of New York. Com¬
plaints reach us from the entire coast from Cape May to the eastern
end of Long Island; even inland places not usually ti-oubled are
rendered almost T,mendurable by the swarms of mosquitoes. " What
can't be cured, must be endured," but it would be really worth
while for the rich people interested to form syndicates to drain the
salt marshes which are the main.brfeeding gi-ounds of these insect
peats. We publiahed some time since the plan of Mr. Chas. Kim¬
ball for reclaiming the marshes in the neighborhood of Bamegat
Bay. This gentleman's idea was to cut dykes through the marsh,
which would bring in the pure salt water of the ocean, and between
these streams to fiU in with good earth upon which houses could be
b\iilt and gardens laid out; in other wgrilB. replace the mosquito

breeding marsh by pure salt water an|j dry land, thus cyeatijig a





I