January 4, 1896





Record   and   Guide.













ESTABLISHED"^'f^CH 2iu> 1868.

Dented to f^LEsTwr.BuiLDif/o A^RcrfiTE(nui^>{(3USDlou>Dianfii^
Busnfess Alto Themes of Giiia^ iKrenpsi..

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Published every Saturday,

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Vol. LVII.            ;JANUARY 4, 189





No. 1,451





The Rrcoud and Guidr will furnish you with daily detailed reports
of all building operations, compiled to suit your business specifically, for
14 cents a day. Yoit are thus kept informed of the entire market for your
goods. Ko guess work. Every fact verified. Abundant capital and the
thirty years'experience of Tmi Rkcoud and Guide i/i/arrtHfce the com¬
pleteness and authciiticity of this'jervice. tiend to 14 and Id Vesey street
for information.





IT is .stated on good authority that a free silver bill will be
reported to the Senate on Tuesd.ay next, that the new bond
issue has been arranged for and that it will be for if^l 0(1,000,000,
.and that the revenue bill will go through withiu a month, or six
weeks at the Latest. These are the three most important items
of news in financial cirele.s at the moment. Wall street is
awaiting the issue of bonds when Congress shall have form
ally declared its intention of doing nathiug to help the
Treasur.y, ^vhich it has already most emphatically, though
informally, declared. Business outside of Wall street is await¬
ing more encouraging- liiospeets for a jieaceful settlement
of the .Venezuelan boundary dispute. How the last-mentioned
matter is regarded by business men found expression at the
Chamber of Commerce meeting on Thursday. There is little
hope that business can do more than drag along until the Com-
mis.sion .iust .appointed has made its report, and tliat then,
if it softens the asjiect of the controversy with Great Britain,
the reaction will be prompt and extensive. Meantime, we
shall have had a large issue of bonds. Tliat the times
are out of .joint is proved by both gold exports and imports
occurring at about the same time. Gold hits been bought
abroad to pay for bonds .and gold has to be shipped to
meet adverse trade balances. This extraordinary state of things
has not only sent gold to a premium, but it is another proof of
the necessity for reforming our currency methods. A popular
loan it is saiil is impracticable, as it no doubt is, because the gold
would be drawn from the Treasury to piT.y for the bonds.
A banker.s' loan does not seem to be much safer, because, while
the subscribers to the bonds may be pledged to bring the gold to
pay for them from abroad, if the.y buy their gold by bills of
exchange, the drawers may have to ship gold to meet the bills.
When the last issue was made this was avoided by the making
of syndicate credits in London and drawing against them. Pre¬
sumably before the arrangements for floating the loan are per¬
fected similar proyisions will be made in this instance also.





EUROPEAN business begins the new year in a waiting atti¬
tude. The activity in all the great lines of production
reached its culmination last f.all and has since been declining,
with an accompanying easing ofif in prices. Regarding the atti¬
tude on the other side toward American railroad securities the
remark of the London Economist, that their prospects are of a
very nebulous kind, owing to the currency problem remaining
unsolved, the uncertain outcome of the elections this year and
the Venezuelan message, probably sums up the situation fairly.
Not onl.v is the Western horizon cloudy, but there are present on
the Eastern so many elements of possible trouble, that enterprise
cannot fail to be checked, and there will be again seen the piling
up of idle funds in the great banks and money again a drug in
the market. The demand for the new year put up discounts in
London to about one per cent., and it shows the extraordinary
condition of affairs that the rise of the rate to this figure was a
Bub.iect of favor.able comment. Last year opened with the boom
in South African mines so far underway that the financial jour¬
nals were crying'• Caution." That boom having collapsed and
the eyes of the public having been opened to the true value of
the Kaffir stocks, they do not now offer any prospect of renewed
activity. Of cour.se the lime will come when a new set of simple¬
tons will have been inveigled into another movement, but not
yet, because the howls of the burnt children are still so piercing
that others will not put their fingers into the fire. Last week we
p,Uuded to the falling oft" ia the wheat crop in European Russia,





This week the preliminary .statement of the Board of Agriculture
.showing the estimated total produce and yield per acre of wheat,
barley and oats in Great Britain in tlie year 1S95 is brought to
us by the mail. It shows, in a compaiison with 1894, losses as
follows: Wheat, 22,(100,000 bushels ; barley, 3,500,000 bush¬
els; oats, 13,000,000 bushels. All reports of the production of
cereals, and particularly of wheat in other countries, favor the
grower in the United States, and the climatic conditions here
being obstructive to the growth of winter wheat ought to favor
higher prices for the stock on hautl.





HOW like the voice of the good grandfather the following,
from Governor Morton's message, is : " It is scarcely con¬
ceivable  at this period of the world's history that any great
nation is willing to take tlie responsibility of the needless sac¬
rifice of liuman life, and the wanton destruction of property
which woukl be the inevitable result of an armed conflict.'
Scarcely conceivable!   Wh.y, you dear,   good   soul,  at  what
antipodes to the real existence of  the hour  have  you  been
living?   The streets are crowded with lumps of raw humanity
ready to roar themselves hoarse for war.   They figure iu the
catalogue of im^n  as merchants, law.yers, storekeepers, clerks,
mechanics, all professing Christianity, or at .any rate civiliza¬
tion;  but what do  the.y care   about   "responsibility" or  the
"sacrifice of human life."   You might as well talk to Choctaws
or Mohawks of such matters.   Surely, the noise of the last ten
days hasn't died .yet i   Millions of full-grown individuals claim¬
ing the dignity of manhood and profcs.sing themselves to bo
reasonable creatures hiive been shouting, gesticulating, threat¬
ening, swaggering, arguing, imploring—about what?   Ask any
of them.   Have they the first tittle of information as to the
real merits of this controvers.y, older than themselves, between
Venezuela and  Great  Britain 1   Why, the  nation itself  has
appointed a commission to find out what we have been talking
about, and it will probably consume months of study before it
can    arrive    at    an   opinion   about   the   matter.    Not   one
in     a    hundred    of    the     clamorous     crowd    could    even
accurately   locate   Venezuela    without    the    aid   of   a  map,
and not  one   iu   ten thousand knows anything  more  of  the
nature of the country, the character of its people, their form of
government, their history, their past relationship with the United
States, than they do of Egyptian hieroglyphics.   Nevertheless,
dear old Gov. Morton, they are even .iocund about your " scarce¬
ly conceivable " disaster, and they talk about war and the " sacri¬
fice of human life " as lightly as you would of a midsummer pic¬
nic.   These people, you must understand, are "patriots," "good
Americans" ; and nowadays to be a patriot it is not necessary to
be well-informed as to what you are willing to fight about, to
reason, to be dignified and moderate, to shun hot words and
senseless talk, or to have any feeling about the " sacrifice of hu¬
man life " or the criminality of an .avoidable conflict with arms.
It is necessaiy, however, to believe that all other nations must
be wrong about any question that arises under the sun concern¬
ing your national interests, feelings or pre,)udices; that if they
dift'er from you, it is tantamount to insult, .and implies an en¬
croachment upon your country's " honor."   And, of course, once
having got this "honor" into the field, passion   and hatred
come    with    it    and    the    waving    of    flags.     Then    the
beating   pul.se   and   the   choking   speech    usurp   the   func¬
tions of the sober minil and the human voice, the accents of
which are higher than the cry of brutes exactly in preportion
to what it tells of conscience and reason, and the love of man.
Could Cleveland call to-morrow for a vote on war, hundreds of
thousands would "rally round the flag," for any piratical con¬
flict that was trumpeted with the nation.al anthem.   " In this
period of the world," says the Governor, as though we were in
the millenium, with Europe armed to the teeth, and our own
country crying for battleshiiis .and the  biggest  guns.     The
average New Yorker would rather read a cheap newspaper
descri]ition of our latest " commerce destroyer" than glance at
the Beatitudes.   That is the mark of our millenium.   The Afri¬
can chieftain isn't civilized by the mere possession of a puncheon
of rum and a tailor-made suit;   and, big as its wardrobe is, the
AVorldto-day'cannot be regarded as really fitted with the clothes
of civilization so long as war is its most popular pursuit and the
vocation that thrills its nerves the most intensely.    Let us
frankly acknowledge that in many respects we are still brutes,
crows and kites, and even in annual messages not talk of the
actual as the "scarcely conceivable."





THE session of the Legislature which is now begun at Albany
is likely to be an interesting one for real estate and build¬
ing interests in this Cit,y. The question of consolidation is
perhaps the one of largest prospective importance, and the one
that will occupy the greatest amount of attention. The intima¬
tions that the politicians are to t.ake it out of the hands of the
Commission, compo.sed mostly of lawyers of standing who have
made a special study of municipal government, does not create
very encouraging hopes of the ultimate resiUf,   Then, too, the