June 15. 1S89





Record   and   Guide.





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Vol. XLIII.





JUNE 15, 1889.





No. 1,109





A dispatch in the New York Tribune, dated Indianapolis, June
llth, and marked " special," said: " Anstia Corbin is liere inspect¬
ing the lines of the Indiana, Bloomington & Western Railway, in
which he holds a controlling interest. He says he has sunk half a
million dollars in tlie properfcy, and that even now it is hardly
earning the interest on its indebtedness,"





There is a freshness aboufc fchis message which would quite suggest
that Corbin himself waa the writer. The control of a property lies
in its stock, and no ono believes that Corbin has any bnt the
slightest interest in its stock, while bis statement, fchat he has sunk
half a million doUars in the property, must make his associates
smile. It is this once great railroad wliich brought Mr, Corbin oufc
of his obscurity in Davenport, la., and the profits he made in it
formed the foundation of his fortune. He was its first president,
and has regularly succeeded himself every annual election. If it is
on the rocks, he alone has been at the hehn, lie has enjoyed
singular immunity from criticism in his performances with the I,,
B. & W., but things cannot much longer keep on going from bad
to worse without a storm in which lightning may strike somebody.





Mayor Grant continues to show that where he is not conti oiled by
his political committals lie has both the will and the power to be a
good May(ir. His treatment of the repavement business, in its con¬
nection with the electric subways, has been very sensible and busi¬
nesslike. Everybody who knows anything about New York knows
that in tlie natural course of events everybody who had any work to
to do under the pavement would wait until the pavement was laid
and then proceed to rip it up, and, ha^'ine dawdled over his work,
relay the pavement very badly, so thafc it would not be a decent
pavement even at the beginning. The Mayor proposes to prevent
this nonsensical nuisance, so far as the subways are concerned, by
ceeing to it that they shall be laid in all streets where bofch they
and the new pavements are authorized after the pavement is taken
up and before it is replaced. This will settle the matter as far as
they are concerned. Naturally objections were raised in tbe Board
of Electrical Conti-ol, in which the Mayor's proposition was made. It
was much too sensible to pass unopposed in an offic.'al body of this
municipahty. Of course it sbouid be adopted and enforced. It
would not be ont of piace to notify all the gas and sfceam heating
and other companies fchat use the streets under the surface to take
the opportunity when the pavements are up to overhaul their pipes
and put them in good condition.





In 1878 fche number of leasehold conveyances (uot leases) recorded
JQ New York City was 473. Five years later the number had
increased to 644, and last year it was 960. Stated in percentages, the
increase between 1878 and 1883 was 36 per cent., and between 187S
and 1888 103 per cent. Now the increase in the number of convey¬
ances during tiie same period—that is, between 1878 and 1888—was
only 99 per cent.; so that in the last ten years there has been a
somewhat greater increase in leaseholds in this city than in convey¬
ances. JMoreover, the greater proportional increase in the number
of leaseholds, as compared with the increase in conveyances, is
really larger than the figures show, for the total of the transfers
has, of late years, been enlarged more than ever by merely
nominal conveyance of iiroperty from one person to another, which
does not occur, at any rate not to the same extent, with leasehold

conveyances.

-------------■------------

In the number of recorded leases (in contradistinction to lease¬
hold conveyances) the increase in the last ten years has been very
heavy. In 1878 they numbered 618 and last year 1,750—an increase
of 184 per cent., about double the increase in the conveyances
during thesame time. These figures clearly show that the leasing
of property, both for loug and short periods, is increasing in this
city more rapidly than the pm-chasing of properfcy; and while the
figures do not warrant any extreme deduction, they point toa
tendency in real estate matters worth watching.

The foregoing facts are especially interesting in view of the very





powerful effort which is being inade in England to enfranchise
leaseholds. The hill for this purpose in the House of Commons
provided, "tbat every lessee or sub-lessee, with a term of twenty
years unexpired, should be entitled to acquire the reversion of his
property by purchase." That is, the landlord must sell out, and if
terms cannot be agreed upon out of Court t!ie County Courts are to
be empowered to fix a price upon the basis of the present interest
plus the reversion.





The measure naturally has been met by great opposition even in
the House of Commons, which itself established a precedent for
such a m-^asure bytbe Irish Laud act of 1887. The argument of
the advocates of the bill, which by the way has the support of the
Radicals and Labor-men, is that the leasehold system produces over¬
crowding, ill-housing and over-renting, and it checks improvement.
Undoubtedly this is true, as a general thing. Liverpool, Manches¬
ter, Bristol, Birmingham, and some other large towns in England
have always opposed " short" leases (that is, leaseholds for ninety-
nine years or less) with beneficial results. London is the great
centre of the " short" lease system, for outside of the metropolis
about 69 per cent, of the population live upon freehold or long
leasehold property. But in London short leases prevail, and much
of the overcrowding in unsanitary buildings, vvhere excessive rents
are charged, is said to be due to this fact.





On the other hand, the opponents of the bill argue that the facts
do not justify the assertion that short leases are the cause of the
evils referred to, and allege that some of the most degraded prop¬
erty in London is freehold. The famous Seven Dials district, so
malodorous physically and morally, was in the hands of small
freeholders from the end of the last century until it was wiped out
of existence a few years ago. Of fche property afi'ected by the
Cross aud Torrens Acfc, 1,023 holdings were declared unsanitary,and
of these 463 were freehold, though the average of leases to free¬
holds was as high as seven to one. Besides, it ie pointed out that
the aboUtion of leaseholds would nofc remedy the alleged evils
unless the owner was compelled to live upon his own property.
And as a final argument it ia said the people do not wish the meas¬
ure. In many cases, especially where tradesmen and small manu¬
facturers are concerned, the leasehold is preferred, as the money
tbat would otherwise be locked up in real estate can be put to more
productive uses. Certainly, at one time all the buildings on the
Holborn Viaduct in London were freehold, but in the last few
years without a single exception they have been  converted into

leaseholds.

—-—■ ■ «■----------------—

The State Board for the Equalization of Taxes has an equitable
name for a very unjust proceeding. It was one of the results of the
resolution made wJien the government of tbis city from Albany
was instituted. When the State once took the power to govern the
city—to control its revenue and expenditures and its taxation—it
gained a power thaft it wUl not willingly lay aside, and that it will
be hard to take away from a majority; for even if the city should
come to contain more tban half the population of the State, it will
be difficult to unseat the present majority in the hands of the
rural counties. The city for many years has paid much more than
its share of the State tax. It thus relieves the rest of the State from
its due share of the burden for interest on the State debt, for State
expenses and local schools and education. This inequality the
State Board of Equalization increases. They have for their prey
the wealth of the city, and as there is no uniform rule of valuation
throughout the State, nor can there be under present laws, they
charge on the city a portion of the tax regularly accrued on the
State. Tlie simple justice of giving the city a member of this
Board would afford the cifcy an opportunity to protest, but not any
reUef. To open a discussion on uniformity of valuation would be
like startuig on a tempestuous sea which has no horizon. This is
one of the evils that has no direct remedy. It leads either to a
radical reform in the methods of taxation which has been discussed
for forty years, or to the restoration of home rule to the city, and
the investigation of the hardest of all political problems, that of
municipal government in a democracy. But to this we shall
come at last.





The trustees of the Cooper Union, in their annual report which
has just appeared, while acknowledging the donations of news¬
papers, books, etc., refer specially to the gift of two "complete"
sets of certain cheap paper "pira.te" hbraries. The "practical"
considerations involved are perhaps too great to permit the hope
tbat the consumers of sentimentality who support these novel libra¬
ries wiU seek their literary hashish in "authorized editions" only,
and thus effectually protest agaiust an iuiquiloua system of legally
sanctioned robbery, which disgr.aces the nation that permits it; but
these "practical" considerations should have no wight with a
moral educational institution under any circumstances, and espe¬
cially in this case where the books were a gift. The proper thing
for the trustees to have done was to have returned the volumes,
and if any publicity were given to the matter It should have taken