June 14, 181tO





Record  and   Guide.





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Vol. XLV.





JUNE 14, 1890.





No. 1,161





Tlie Stock Market during the past week has not been all that the
bulls might wish, but ib bas boeu all they have had a right to
expect. When quotations depend on Congressional legislation on a
matter like the silver question, as to which there are so many con^
flicting opinions and iuterests to reconcile, uo one can complain if
the days of waiting and suspense are many and the days of advaucng
prices few. Tbere are, however, a great many influences at work
for higher prices quite apart froaa silver legislation. The railroad
earnings show even larger increases than those we have been
accustomed to; bank clearings never before aggregated such big
figures ; general trade is reported to be active, and a better feeling
prevails in tbe irou aud coal mxvkats, >StiII mure important, per¬
baps, from the point of view of permanent effect, is the practical
purchase of the Baltimore & Ohio by the Eichmond Terminal, It
is not generally realized how far this combining process has gone,
and the exhibit made by the Financial Chronicle last week has
doubtless surprised miny iuvestors ia railway securities. After
an elaborate sur cey Hof the field the Chronicle comes to the con¬
clusion that sixteen leading iuterests and corporations control
111,149 miles of road. And if the 10,867 miles in the hands
of the Canadian Pacific and Grand Trunk systems are
taken out, over 100,000 mijps w(,uid remain under the direction of
fourteen interests. The most important of these interests is the
Vanderbilt, w^L'ich owns some 15,6(13 miles; the next is the Gould,
with 11,879 miles; the third is the Huntington, with 9,038 miles; a
close fourth is the Atchison, with 8,965 miles; tbe Uuion Paciflc
follows with 8,047 miles; Richmond Terminal is sixth, with 7,664
miles, and the Penn-ylvania is seventh, with 7,469 miles. The
classifieif.tion on analysis may appear arbitrary in some respects,
but it is very interesting in showing to what an extent the consoli¬
dation has gone. Tbe most compact and prosperous of all these
systems is the Pennsylvania, although it stands only seventh iu
respect to mileage. Already, however, a change would have to be
made in the table through the acquisition of the Baltimore & Ohio
by the Eichmond Terminal. The former corporation controls
nearly 1,900 mites, the addition of which to the Richmond Terminal
would make it third on the list. How far this process will be con¬
tinued it is impossible to say. It would seem to be the part of w isdom
for the mauao'ers of these great systems to turn their attention to
simplifying the enormously complex machinery under which the
roads are at present worked, and to consolidating and unifying
their stock and bonded obligations, ludeed, this process will be
almost inevitable, f.r by it great savings can be made both in
operating expenses and fixed charges. The railroads at the present
time are operated by the best business and organizing talent in the
country; theii' position is strengthened every year by these wise
amalgamations, and eventually tbey may well be reduced to a
simplicity which at preseut seems inconceivable.





Governor Hill has met with praise for the way iu which he has
disposed of the bills left on his hands, eveu from sources which are
iu the habit of treating his actions as uniformly bad. Yet it can
be said with .justii-e, after taking a careful survey of the legislative
corpses with which bis desk is so plentifully bestrewn, that he has
evinced in his vetoes a more careful regard for newspaper opinions
than for tbo public good. In the matter of the cable bill he has
refused to "stultify " himself in the eyes of certain contempora¬
ries, but he bas consented to stultify the city in respect to its
transit interests. Our present street railroads are not only slow in
improving theu- motive powers, but they are active in preventing
%e building of competitive lines. Thus the legislative season ends
with absolutely no assistauce from Albany in this trausit matter—a
consammatiou which inures to the benefit of out-of-town property-
owners and tbe retailers and manufacturers of shoos. The familiar
cry of the "corporations be damned "has been used effectively
against the East Eiver Bridge bill and the measure for raising the
Harlem River bridges. Indeed, the Governor and the Legislature
both have exhibited the greatest care in defeating legislation to
enable New Yorkers to get anywhere; they evideatly believe in
maintaining what we may call tbe present spatial relations of the





metropolis, both as regards the internal connections of the pai'ts
and its external .relations to other places. The Governor haa done
well to allow the Aqueduct Claims bill to lapse, though, perhaps,
we may even come to regret this, in case the coutractors ever
recover their claims from tbecity and we are obliged to meet heavy
interest charges on the amount of tbe awards. It is, perhaps, also
fortunate that he has signed the bill providing for a Commis¬
sioner of Streets iu tbe 23d and 34th "Wards. It is by no means a
perfect piece of legislation, as the inhabitants of that section will
have reason to discover in time ; but it will give them a far better
machinery than they have at present.





The memorandum Governor Hill filed with one of the bills he
signed calls for more extended comment. Itis perhaps an unusual
spectacle, even in these days of tb*; divorce between legislation
and common sense, to see an executive officer give^ number of
reasons for not signing a bill based on a quarrel rt'itb its essential feat¬
ures, and yet in the end not scruple to sign it, fie has doue what he
himself considers to be a foolish act in approving the bill making
the Sberiff a, salaried officer. But he ignores his objections because
no one else shares them. Tbe Governor eviilently believes with
Novalis, that an individual opinion gains a thousandfold in strength
if there is one other person who believes in the same way. The
reasons, however, which he gives for these misgivings are a suffi¬
cient explanation why they exist solely iu his own mind. Thus,
he thinks, the fact thafc tbere has been a marked decrease in the
fees received by the Register's and County Clerk's «ffices since
they have become salaried—^a decrease that has made them a bur¬
den to the city rather than a source of income to the politicians—
to be an indication tbat this change was hasty and ill-advised. But
people who do not live in Albany know very well that there is no
central relation between the decrease in fees and the change in the
method of giving compensation to tbe managers of these offices.
If the fees bavo decreased because of the above-mentioned chan<re,
it can only ba because our subsequent County Clerks and Registers
have ceased to be as vigilant aud to serve tbe public as well since
they ceased to receive returns large in proportion to their amount
of work done—an imputation which we are sure those officials
would resent. Furthermore, it is quite obvious that no lack of
vigilance could at all affect a certain part of the fees received by
the Register, viz.: those which come from t'le recording of deeds
aud mortgages. The fact of the matter is, that the decrease iu
fees is due solely to the decrease in the amount of searching done,
and tbis decrease in searching, as is well known, is caused entirely
by the inability of the Register's and Couuty Clerk's offices to com¬
pete with the improved methods of indexing used by the title
guarantee companies. Tbe decrease results consequently not from
any change in the methods of compensating fchose officials who
could not have prevented it save by the passage of a number of
acts totally reformiig their department, bufc' from the external
competition of a number of clever busineas men. If Governor Hill
had pursued investigations to Brooklyn, he would have found iu
that city a County Clerk who still depends on fees for a livelihood,
but who is in despair because of a decrease in his source of income
similar to the decrease in the city's income ou tbi^ side of ihe
river. Governor Hill should look a little bit further before he
makes such ill-considered objections to good pieces of legislation. ■





Must uot ours be a tolerably thick-skinned commuuity if it
passively watches the return of the boodle Aldermen from their
shelter in Canada and permits them to quietly settle themselves
again "inour midst." There is very little doubt, however, tbat iu
this matter New York will give the world a most conspicuous
example of its pachydermatous condition. Already two of these
meu have returned, as though to spy the public feeling and test our
moral alertness. Their reception having been friendly in tbe extreme
and legally cordial it is not to be wondered at that their self-exiled
companions are packing up their traps preparatory to returning
home. Now, why should New York act in a half-hearted way?
What we are going to do let us do .at once thoroughly. We should
instruct our "simple, christiau" friend, the District Attorney, to
draw up a cordial invitation in the name of the people of New
York City, to be sent to our respected "boodle" brethrenabroad,
asking them to return home to fcheir friends, For rhetorical effect
and to indicate earnestness it might be well to say then- " dis¬
tressed" or "sorrowing" friends, after fche sfcyleof fche " Personal"
advertisement. So that they shall bear no resenfcmeufc against fche
community, and as a confession of what undoubtedly is a fact, it
would be advisable to declare that the threats of prosecution and
the judicial farce tha,t has been prolonged now for some years was
only a joke—a sort of popular practical joke of a lively people that
care little for official rectitude, that have established an elaborate
legal system ostensibly to punish, but really to protect shrewd and
influential criminals. The game is played out. We can get no
more fun from it, so let us come from behind the curtain and show
ourselves as we are to the world,





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