March 26, 1893





Record   and   Guide.





4fi5





^'    ^  w

Dr/OTEŨ JO HeA.1- EsTME  Bu1LDI|/g ARCrflTECTai^E .HoUSE^OLD DEOOfVMlOl).
BasilJESS AfÍDĨHEMES Of GeSeI^I- ^m^í^l







ESTABLISHED\V> N\ARpHÍI'-í^ 1868.







PRICE, PER YEAR m ADVAIVCE, SIX DOLLARS.

Published every Saturday.

TKLBPHONK    ....   CORTLANDT 1370.

CommiiTiicatioDs should be addressed to

C. W. SWEET,  14 & 16 Vesey St.

J. 1. LINDSEY, Business Manager.

"Entered at ihe Post-o^ce at New York, N. T., as second-class matttr."





VOL. XLIX,





MARCH  26,  1892.





So. 1,254





THE week has seen the marketing of a good deal of long stock,
and the next may see the raarketing of u good deal more. In
addition therearesomeother influences against prices at work in
the stock market, the eiĩect of which has to be seen before any real
and general improvement in prices can be hoped tor. The threat-
ened continuance of the gold export movement which puzzles
financiers at homeand abroad, and is only explained by the increas-
ing sale of foreign lioldiugs of American securilies is one of these
influences, and the indications are that the threat may be fulfilled.
The condition of Northern racific and Union Pacific is very unsat-
isfactory; the decline in the first being so rapid as
to {>rove that there is something radically wrong with
the Northern Pacific system, and the unofficial announce-
ment of a new impending experiment in inanagement
in the Union Pacific systera is taken as ,a confession that the prop-
erty finds diflîcully in carrying its present burdens. In addition to
these influences tliere are to be taken into account the people who
wiUinsist on being scared by the phase the Behring Sea negotiatiou
is now takingon. Reports of the failure of theRichmond Terminal
plan have been and will be unfairly used to depress prices, although
the time has not yet arrived when any one can say whether the
plan is a failure or a success. The decliue in the price of the
securities is not conclusive evidence of failure, because a decline is
a featiu'e peculiar to the secnrities of all properiies in process of
reorganization and only suggests the opinion of s,ome holders. Such
influences as these, let them be important or not, have to como
from time to time, and when they do couie the sooner tliey do iheir
work and make way fursuch as have a more cheerful countenance
the better. One of these which will come into play soon—with the
permission of the diplomatic game cocks of course—is Eiigland's
dependence on this country for her gold supply. While so much
has been said of foreign realizings here, it should not be left out of
sight that the great investment iũstitutions in London have in large
part replaced their holdings of continental securities by the best
classes of American railioad bonds. The jealousy with which the
great European flnancial powers without exception guard their
gold supply, will compel Threadneedle Street to rely mainly, and
notwitlistanding tliat ihey are eight days apart, upon this market
for its supply of gold. If this wiU depress prices while the demand
is on this side from time to time, the advaiicesconsequent on secur-
ing necessary credits at ottier times wiU more than offset the
depressions. It is not uufair to assume, too, that the enlarged
acreage under cereals this year will continue the good business to
the railroads even if natiire should not be so generous to the tarmer
as last year, and in addition there is to be anticipated a movement
and a life in the whole country next year which cannot fail to be
benetícial to trade. These things keep the market from disorgani-
zation even imder the most depressing news aud suspicions of evil,
and when once the latter fail any longer to be of elîect, the influ-
ence of the better aspects oí the situalion must be very powerful.





AN interesting incident has recently happened in Great Britain
which goes to show that this is not the only country in
which railway combinations are surrounded with di.i cullies. Two
Scolch companies, the Caledonian and North British, have formany
years been competing in a way that was most disastrous to the sliare-
holders. Matters fiiially came to such a pass that in the interests
of the owners of the two companies some agreement became impera-
tive, and flnally such an agreemeut was entered into. Although
this agreement bas now been in effect m ^re Ihan three monihs, aud
it is admitted that the public have not been injurod in any
way, yet the leading tradera of Glasgow and the west
of ScotUnd have resolved to express their disapproval ia a manner
that seems likely to be effectual. The Glasgow warehousemeu have
agreed to divert the whole of their through traflSc betweea England





and Scotland from the Caledonian and the North British to the
Glasgow and Southwestem and Midland. Such local trafiic as can
will be similarly diverted. The Midland, which is strongly opposed
to the Scotch Raihvay agreement, is prepared to give every facility
to the objecting traders. Besides the large warehousemen, several
large manufacturers have intimated their inteniion of foUowing a
like policy. How the companies will act in this emeigency is natur-
ally uncerlain. It is open to them to attempt to disarm opposition
by conceasions of some kind or another ; but if the traders remain
in their present temper, nothing will satisfy them but h return to
the old order of things. This is certainly a more effectual method
of preventing consolidations than by any appeals to State Legisla-
tures or railway commissions ; but manifestly it is possible, only
the combination does not include all the competing companies.





CERTAINLY one of the most encouraging signs of the times is
that many builders of houses in this and other prominent
cities of tho country are workirg perseveringly and intelligently on
progressive lines. The standard of achievement is so far raised
that these builders are no longer content to make a city which is
simply a conglomeration of houses; they are trying more and more
to design, group and construct buildings, so that the result will be
pleasant to look at, as wellas comfortable to livein. This effort haa
fortunately received the support of the buying and owning public;
and consequently it is not probablo that this raising of the standard
wiU stop at any one point. On the contrary, the improvement is
likely to be continuous, and while the army of the unregenerate
wiU always be large and their work predominant in the matter of
quantity, yet we may expect that twenty-five years from now the
alliance between building and architecture will be even more firmly
rooted and more widely exemplified than it is at present. More
room for improvement, we believe, exists in small dwellings than
in the larger ofíice buildings. Probably in the majority of cases
a th'ee or four hundred thousand dollar improvement is given to an
intelligent or skiUful, if not an infallible designer, but the dwell-
ings |in rows of the speculative builder are but too fre-
quently planned by architects selected for anytliing but
artistic reasons. Yet it is these dwellings that give char-
acter and distinction to a city, and it is very important
if the greater New York of the future is to be a more
attractively appearing place than the restrictcd New York of the
past that the artistic leaven should thoroughly pervade them that
buy and them that build thisclass of structures. Consequently any
single row of buildings, the construction of which has been pccom-
panied by a real effort to improve the standard of the past, deserves
the sincere thanks and hearty good wishes of all those interested in
the artistic advancement of New York. Such an effort has recently
beeu made by a prominent builder, in upper Harlem; and the
results are such a marked advance upon the products of current
methods that one feels inclined to regret that the houses
in question are not as accessible as they might be. A
good cxample has been put before the building and buy-
ing public of New York of what can be done to make a block
of dwellings in the middle of a city both pieasant to look at and
habitable. Many other such examples have been set, but lackin^
the magnitude and completeness of this attempt they have not
attracted attention. This present instance, however, cannut fail to
do so. It shows excellently well that dwelliags designed by the
best architects in the profession can be built, in such a way and at
such a piice as to make them very acceptable to the ordinary buyer.





THAT this example wUl be very extensively followed it íb
scarcely reasonable to suppose. There are very fpw builders
in New York aiid still fewer outside who could afford to undtrtake
operations on such a scale, for it is necessary they should be con-
ducted on a large scale in order to obtain the results which have
been obtained in this case. Usually a buildpr puts up a row of
fram half a dozen to a dozen houses. Tbe desigu of each of these
dwellings may be in isolation not unattractive, but it is very seldom
any attempt is made to subordinate each individual house to a
composition that includes them all, Furthermore, even when this
is done, the general effect of tlie whole street is spoiled because the
contiguous rotv will be built upon some totally differeut, and it may
be some ridiculously incongruous plan. For the purposeof obtaining
themost harmonious and compleiest artistic results the unit of build-
ingshould not be one lot or twelve lots, but the whole block. In the
case mentioned such a unit has been used. The merits of the
treatment iu this patticular instance it is not our purpose to pass
upon just now, but everyone will admit that the general effect
gains enormously from the subordioation of every uivision to a
single design. The des'gnitself might not be so happy as that of
individual rows on another block, but the latter must ahvays fall
tmder the condemnation of being a part utterly unrelated to its
natural artistic whole. Present conditions, as we have already
said, forbid any general imitation of the exaniple set
in this caae, but verj certainly a closely-built city.
can never be made artistically satisíactory until this practioe is