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May:a7, 1898
Record and Guide.
825
ESTABI.;SHED^;WJtKCH?li!^ie66.^
PRICE, PER TEAR IN ADVANCE, SIX DOLLARS.
Published every Saturday.
Tblefhohb^ .... CoaTLARDT 1370.
OoniiniinlcatloQs ataoald be addressed to
C. W. SWEET, 14 & 16 Vesey St,
J. I. LINDSEY, Business Manager,
'^sintered at tive Post-offlce at New Tork, N. F., oa aecond-class matter."
Vol. U.
MAY 37, 1893.
No. 1,316
VERY little that ia new can be said of the world of money.
Thereare failures here, there and everywhere now as there
were a week ago ; the latest ones so far have only lengthened the
list, they have not relieved the aituation. The same distnist
and suspicion that have been in the very air for so long prevail and
create an indisposition to trade insecurities, consequently the stock
market is very dull, rising only on pi-ofessional manipulation, but
rapidly declining again on realization. No better indication of the
dullness in business iu this liue could be received than the intima¬
tion that some recent offerings of very good bonda have been ouly
partly taken and that the underwriters will have to carry a
large balance for some time before they can hope to see it
absorbed by investors. This condition of things means a
further period of stagnation, with a sagging away of
prices in many directions highly probable. The Richmond Termi¬
nal plan of Dresel, Morgan & Co.. which it was hoped would help
the situation very materially by finding a satisfactory solution for
a problem that has done much harm, has so far only been ioju-
rions. In fact this plan seems to find its only support amoug
the people who have none of the securities treated; the holders are
either throwing over their stocks and bonds or raising protests
against the treatmest it is proposed to give them. Tliat the Foster
failure had so little influence on prices was due to the nan-owness
of the market, and in this can be found a reason for believing
that until the situation has worked into a more satisfactory con¬
dition any attempt to put up prices will bc discountenanced by
the conservtive element which is now the controlling element.
THE totals of English foreign trade for the month of April do
not sustain any shght hopes of a revival of prosperity that
may have been excited by the figures of the previous month. The
imports show a decrease of about two and three-quarter million
pounds in value as compared with the corresponding month of last
year, which is mainly attributable to the same causes that have
been in operation during the previous three months, viz.: low prices
of cereals, the decline in the receipts of textile materials, chiefly
raw cotton. The total decrease in imports for the month is about
7 per cent, while for the four mouths it amounts to 11 per cent. In
the exports there is a decrease of a million pounds and a quarter,
chiefly in textile fabrics and metals, while machinery also shows
a heavy falling off. The decline shown is 7 per cent as compared
with April last year, which is about the aame ratio as that shown
by the figures for the four months, but as last year's returns also
showed heavy decreases it is difficult to perceive any features of
encouragement on the face of the present situation. Of all the in¬
dustries of Great Britain it is generally admitted that the iron in¬
dustry is in the" most unsatisfactory condition. The cotton trade is
also very much depressed, but this depression is of less general
importance because the ramifications of the industry are not so
wide. If there is stagnation in iron manufacturing, the industries
which supply iron ores, coal, coke and limestone suffer equally
with those who use those products iu the processs of
manufacture. No recent economic change affecting the iron
industry has been more notable and pronounced than the decline
in the English production of iron ores, and none is more calculated
to arouse apprehensions as to the future. The British furnaces are
becoming more and more dependent upon imports from other coun¬
tries, not because there is any scarcity of domestic ores, but because
the purer and richer ores of Spain meet more exactly the present
needs of the iron manufacturers. The outlook for any immediate
improvement in the prices of stocks is considered to be extremely
poor. Money has become comparatively stringent, and the uncer¬
tainty of our own currency position is a menace to dealings which
look very far ahead. One conservative authority predicts that specu
lation for the present will be confined to South African and American
properties. Although the boom in the former securities has been
checked there is no doubt that they possess many elements of
promise. The Randt gold industry is being steadily developed and
the estates of the great land companies are likely to be rapidly
opened up by railway lines, Still the fact remains that present
prices are mainly or entirely based upon what the future may
possibly contain. In spite of the recent collapse a great many
securities which yield either small dividends or none at all still sell
at premiums of from 100 to 500 per cent.
APPLICATION was recently made tojthe Department of Bnild-
iugs for permission to alter the five-story buildings at the
southwest corner of Broadway and 35th street for hotel uses. The
Superintendent of Buildings refused to issue a permit on the ground
that hotel buildings, whether new or altered structures, should be
fire-proof according to his construction of the requirements of the
building law. The lessee of the property applied to Chief Judge
Daly, of the Court of Common Pleas, for a mandamus to compel
Superintendent Brady to issue a permii, maintaining that it was
necessary for him to make only the first floor fire-proof to comply
with the law. Section 4b4 of the building law requires that every
buildiug hereafter erected, to be used as a hotel, the height of
which exceeds 35 feet, shall be built fire-proof. Section 480 pro¬
vides that every building hereafter altered, to be occupied as a
hotel, five stories in height, or having a basement and four stories
in height above a cellar, shall have the first floor above the cellar,
or lowest story, constructed flre-proof. This is exactly
what the framers of the building law intended—
that new hotel buildings shouId)|be constructed fire-proof, and that
buildings altered to be occupied as hotels should conform ta the
requirements of the law fcr new tenement houses by having one
lower floor made fire-proof. It may appear inconsistent forthe
law to require that a new buildiog for hotel uses must be constructed
fire-proof while an old building can be converted into a hotel pro¬
vided one floor only is made fire-proof. Neverthelsss, the distinc¬
tion was knowingly made inthe law. Following the fatal Hotel
Royal flre the Committee who were engaged iu revising ihe build¬
ing law were requested by the FireM^^iommissioners to insert in the
law requirements that all hotels and lodging houses thereafter
erected should be constructed fire-proof. At a conference of the
Committee and Commissioners the latter waived their request for
fire-proof lodging houses, and the requirement for hotel buildinga
thereafter erected to be constructed fire-proof was adopted. The
Bommittee well knew, however, that the law also provided for
alterations to buildings for hotel purposes which would only have
to be made fire-proof iu part, and they so intended. So much for
the intent of the law as far as stated.
IF sections 480 and 484 were the two sections of the law only in
controversy, the applicant for a mandamus against the Super¬
intendent would have won easily. But tbe attorney to the Build¬
ing Department brought in section 471, which says that no building
already erected shall be altered in such a manner that were such
building wholly built or constructed after the passage of the act, it
would be in violation of any of the provisions of the law. The
wording in this section 471 has remained without alteration for the
past fifteen >ears or more. Wben the present Department of
Buildings was for many years a Bureau in tbe Fire Department,
the attorney to the Fire Department construed the language of tbis
section to apply to the new portions added to a building, if
raised, altered or built upon, the law giving to the
Superintendent ample discretionary powers to decide as
to the safety of a building for alterations. Under this construc¬
tion, the building law was administered during the twelve years
that the Bm-eau of Buildings was in the Fire Department. A literal
interpretation tbat tbe whole .building must be constructed accord¬
ing to law, as amended from time to time, would have prevented
thousands of alterations to buildings, whicti have been made in
the past. It would prevent, for example, the owner of a four-story
dwelling house from building a butler's pantry extension, unless
the old building, as regards thickness of walls, etc., was fully up to
the full requirements of the new law, as in most instances they
are not.
THE attorney to the new Department of Buildings insisted on
the language used in section 471 being construed to mean juat
what it says, and the Judge leaning, as Judges are quite apt to do,
to the side of a city Department, denied the application for a man¬
damus. Notwithstanding Judge Daly's decision, which is by no
means final, the i)roposed alteration of building for a hotel ie in
accordance with law, as the law provides for alterations as well as
for new hotel buiidiugs. The act itself declares that the law iato
be construed liberally, and the public was led to expect by the per¬
sistent advocates of a separate Department of Buildings that the
building, plumbing, light and ventilation regulatious would be ad¬
ministered in a more liberal and just spirit than was formerly the
practice in the Fire aud Health Departments, but if the decision
in this hotel alteration case is to stand, it would appear that ownera