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Fe'brii.ary 20, 1R9(;
Record and Guide.
335
_ ESTABUSHED-^iWRPHSMi^iesa.
.DtAtH) to Rp^lEstate.BuiloiKg Ap.cKrrE(mjnE>{ousEi«)u>
.Bi/sntess AJfo Themes of GE|teR^l Irrttupi^
PRICE, PER YEAR IN ADVANCE, SIX DOLLARS.
Published every Saturday.
TBLBPHONB,......OOBTIAHDT 1370
UcmmnnloatlonB should he addressed to
C. W. S'WEET. 14-16 Vesey Street.
/, 1. LINDSEY. Business Manager.
"Mntered at the Post-office al New York, N, Y., as lecond-elass matter,"
Vol. LVII.
FEBRUARY '2\), 1896
No. l,4,'-i0
The Record and Guide will furnish you with daily detailed reports
of all building operations, compiled to suit your business speci.fically, foi
14 cents a day. Yon are thus ke})! informed of the entire market for your
goods, Ko guess work. Every fact verified. Abundant capital and the
thirty years' experience of The Recoud and Guide guarantee the com¬
pleteness and authent'ic'ity of this service. Sendito 14 and IG Vesey street
for information.
THOSE who arc not capable of taking a coinprelienBive view
of tilings ma.v be either bulls or bp.irs, both in W.all Street
and in the coniniercial world. On the stock market the pecun¬
iary difficulties of Baltimore & Ohio, which Iiave lonf? beeu
known, liave an adver.se influence because they are acute for the
inonient. A similar effect was produced by its becoming known
that the ITiiitfd .States Leather Co. had' undertaken to do inure
business than the market would allow, and had therefore
assumed obli{;ations that are biii'ileiisome for liic time being.
But both Baltimore & Ohio and Leather have declined thirty or
forty points precisely becinise of these facts, which were known
to insiders months and mouths ago, although ouly now made
patent to tlie public intelligence. On the other hand,
there are properties which aro emerging from their troubles and
making very satisfactory eaiiiii'g statements, such, for instance,
as the Northern Pacific and Atchi.soii. In the prominence of
certain weak issues, the facts that the tone of the general mar¬
ket is strong and that there continues all the while good buying
of bonds pass unobserved. From trading circles there come
discoffra,ging reports of overstocking, islow collections and
grud.ged accommodations, but these reports can be duplicated
ill the tiles of tho trade .iournals of this time last year, and yet
last summer aud fall were satisfactory in precisely those lines
where the greatest comidaint comes from. So reviewing the
situation as a whole, it must be admitted that there are more
reasons to be satistied than dissatistied with it. The attempt to
get up a new war scare on the Cuban resolutions, though appar¬
ently successful for a moment will not, we think, amount to
much, and the recovery from auy decline that maybe brought
about from this cause will be rapid.
SOUTH AFRICAN affairs are not likely to become more set¬
tled by the reception accorded to the melodramatic " Dr.
Jim" and his fellow raiders ou their arrival in London. If the
shouting and hurrahs could be considered merel.y as an expres¬
sion of admiration for a daring spirit, they would not matter
greatly, but they must also be taken as showing the continua¬
tion of the feeling of resentment against Germany, whose ambi¬
tion in South Africa i.s believed to conflict with that of Great
Britain, in spite of ofticial declarations to the contrary. Not only
do the impulsive dtiily new.spapers still harp upon this idea, bnt
the sober weeklies and the solemn reviews give it encourage¬
ment and support. Great Britain feels that it de.alt generously
with Geiiuauy over the partitiou of the African continent, aud
that therefore it ought now to be left to develop its own share
without obstruct ious or jealou.sy from Germany, and in this view
coster aud aristocrat are as one. An outsider may think a quar¬
rel between two parties over territories arbitrarily absorbed may
be rather an amusing thing and tending to produce poetic jus¬
tice, bnt two peojiles who have tho "colonizing" craze, as the
British and Germans h.ive, will uever be brought to see it in
that way, and if there is to be a leanangement of the " fireas of
influence" it is likely to be a serious busiuess. But that, if to
come at all, is in the future, and meantime commerce has to be
carried on, and we get our reports from b.anking and trading
centers as usual. In Great Britain the statements that are beiug
published relating to railioad and banking business in 1895 are
indicative of a f.airly satisf.actoiy busiuess; the tinal results
would have beeu really good but for the setback that occurred
in the last month. The crisis in France seems to be passing
without any of the serious consequences predicted by the news¬
papers. An expected bourse reform law is causing activity in
the Berlin loan market, so that new issues are very large. Severe
jestrictions ou bourse operations seem to be inevitable, and they
will hit the smaller bankers, the brokers, and of course the pub¬
lic, which eventually p.ays for all this kind of legislation, very
hard. The big banks are thought to be impervious to damage,
as they only take the pick of the busiuess at any time. The
German foreigu trade in textiles issaid to be very large. The
Vieuna bourse has recovered from the series of crashes it ex¬
perienced a short time ago, where the re-entry of Russian in¬
fluence in Bulgaria, although supplanting that of Austria, is felt
to make for peace.
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rpHE temporary exclusion of Flu,shiug, Jamaica and Heuip-
-*- stead from the Greater New York bill by the political gang
who are riiuuing affairs at Albany is a forcible confession of
the territoriarextravagance of the consolidation scheme, and the
subsequent suddeu reincorporation of those three towns iuto
the plan is equally plain e'vidence of how little real careful con¬
sideration the provisions of this most important measure are
receiviug from the individuals who are .juggling with it. Clearly,
it is all a game of politics and the prospects at present are that
the game will be played out to the finish and this community will
be committed to a crude, botched revolutionary plan which wUl
produce chaos in our municipal affairs for ]iossibly a generation
at least. It is a criminal piece of work, and we know not which
to despise the most; the utter recklessness of the iioliticians or
the blank inditterence of our people. The former, of course, is
the natural correlative of the former ; and by and by when the
bills for the blunder have to be paid no tears should bo wasted
ou the sutt'erers. Real estate owners of this city have been and
stillaio 80 conspicuousl.y inditl'ereut to their own interests iu the
matter, that a special clause ought to be inserted iu the Con¬
solidation bill making it a criminal oft'ence (being an iiuneces-
saiy disturbance of the Tpeace) for them to "kick " against or
object in any manner to tho consequences of the law. Having
received due notice, one should not object when the case goes
against him by default. It is time that popular consideration
of legislation (i.f1er laws are ou the statute books shonld cease.
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"\/f A YOR QUINCY of Boston is the author of a plan which, if
-^'J- it were adopted by Mayor Strong, might do something'to
bring the business men of this city into closer relations with its
municipal government. Mayor Quincy sent a request to each
of the vai'ious busiuess aud labor org.anizations of Boston to
select one of its members to represent it on au advisory board
which the Mayor wished to constitute as a help to him in disposin "
of the knotty problems of Boston's municipal household! The
organizations couseuted to the fdrinatiou of this unofficial couu¬
cil and the new machine seems to be working smoothly. If it
proves to be useful, why .should uot a simil.ir plan be tried in
New York i Of course in an English or a Geiman city such au
advisory board would uot be in the least necessary, because the
Common Councils of these cities are thoroughly representaiive
bodies, and are sufflcieutly iu touch -with public opinion aud
with the business interests of the community to constitute a
valuable check upon the ofiicialism of the local departments.
But in New York the Mayor has no advisory body upon the
opinion of which he cau rely. The Board of Aldermen ex¬
ists chiefly as a relic of the past, and not as a respected relic.
The vai'ious boards which transact a large part of tho city's
busiuess are in no sense representative—partly because they are
all heads of departments, and partly because whether heads of
departments or not, they are not in close touch with the busi¬
ness community. Indeed, there seems to be no way within
the limits of our present municip,il machinery of keeping the
city officials, through their head, the Mayor, in closer counection
with the city's important interests. An informal advisory body,
consisting of representatives of the more important businessand
labor organizations, might just serve this purpose. The whole
tendency of the changes iu our adniinistrative machinery is too
much iu the direction of au all-powerful Mayor aud a highly
centralized organization. It may be that this tendency is right
enough, .although its successes so far have not been striking;
but whether right or not, tho Mayor is in the end powerless for
good unless backed by the busine.ss interests of the city, and in
order to obtain such a backing some way must be devised of get¬
ting business men interested in what is actually being done in
the municipal buildings. Mayor Quiucy's innovation has the
advantage for this purpose, if not making very considerable de¬
mands upon the busiuess meu selected, of being easily carried
out, and of being as easily discarded iu case it proves to be a
burdensome or useless expedient.
SENATOR CANTOR'S bill for amending the Mechanics' Lien
Law, to which brief reference was made in our Albany cor¬
respondence last week, coutains a number of extraordinary pro¬
visions to which we wish to draw attention. The ostensible
purpose of the bill is to give laborers employed f o dig founda¬
tions or otherwise clear lots for improvement a lien upon the lot
upon which such work is done. This is sought to be obtained
by a number of objectionable provisions. For instance, in tho