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April 18, 1896
Record and Guide.
65:?
ESTABUSHED-^ J\IWPH21'4^ 1868,
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Published ererg f-liitnrday.
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Vol. LVII.
APRIL 18, 189iJ.
No. 1,466
The Record and Guide will furnish you with daily detailed reports
of all huilding operations, compiled to suit your business spec'ilically, foi
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for information.
WITU SUPPLEMENl.
THERE is a very wholesome improvemeDt iu biLsiness in all
directions, aud that is all that need be said of the com¬
mercial situation after what we have beeu saying for weeks
past, except, perhaps, to poiut out that the improvemeut has uot
gone far enough to occaisiou any anxiety about its continuance.
There is not the remotest prospect of a boom, but a wholesome
advance in prices from the low level of this year is a sure
thing. Business is beiug done iu a conservative manner. The
prospect for a sound money declaration at the convention of the
popular party of the moment, and the expectation that Congress
will soon consist of innocuous scattered particles instead of a
mischievous entity, as now, are all aflfecting men's niiuds favor¬
ably aud liberating business from the fears tiiat have oppressed
it for months. The buying on the stock market is very good in
quality, if somewhat light in quantity. Investments and the
issues of properties that have or are closing up liquidation are
the favorites. This is good judgment, because there is no
doubt that the most money is in these things for some time to
come.
WITH a revenue $29,000,000 in excess of the estimates,
$37,500,000 greater than in the previous year, and a
surplus over expenditures of $21,000,000, Great Britain has
every reason to be satistied. Ordinarily, the takiug of so much
money out of the pockets of the taxpayers unneces-sarily would
not be a matter for congr.itulatiou, but iu this case it is due to
an unexpected increase in trade, and that is where the satisfac¬
tion comes in. On this side of the Atlautic, aud oh the pity of
it! our relations with foreign Poweis are in clumsy hands, and
our currency capable of being disturbed by time-serving politi¬
cians in Congress and ignorant cranks out of it, and these will
not give our trade fair play; otherwise our exchequer would
also be full to overflowing. It creates some bitterness in the
mind to see it, but the fact has to be admitted that Europe is
enjoying a renewed prosperity that the United States ought to
share, but does not, in the full degree that it is entitled to do,
simply because its public aflfairs are in the hands of men who
cannot be trusted to declare for what is best for the nation, but
rather for eftects on the minds of the crowd, who, while they
elect Presidents, are best swayed by ,appeals to their passions
rather than to their reason. However, to return to the condi¬
tion of things in Europe, despite the stop put to the floating of
new ventures in South Africa, the new capital applications for
the first quarter of the year in Great Britain were larger than
for any similar period since 1892. The reports of the great
French banking companies show an increase of business in the
past year, but this, as a rule, has not produced increased divi¬
dends. There has been no rush of colonists to Madagasc,3,r,
though 40,000 applications have been received for positions
under the government in the island. Berlin financial quarters
have relapsed into dullness since the issue of the Chinese loan ;
general business, however, continues good throughout the
Empire. The same state of things esi.sts at Vieuna and in
Austria-Hungary. The Russian government is uudoubtedly in
the market for gold with which to create a gold standard. It
has already made considerable accuniulations of the precious
metal and has coined 750,000,000 rubles worth of new gold
coins. It is not anticipated that in obtaining further supplies
anything -will be done that will disturb the markets. It is more
than probable that this country will be relied upou for what is
wanted. The Sherman law made easier the Austria-Hungarian
currency reform, and our adherence to our own " original"
currency system may facilitate a similar movement in Russia.
TTJE'regret to see that the bill permitting the storing of trucks
' ' in the streets has been passed by the Senate. It is a fact
needing no demonstration that the streets are not proper places
in which to store trucks or anything- else. Their occupation in
this or any other similar way is a violation of the statutory and
implied law that the public has a right to free and unimpeded
passage through auy thoroughfare, aud the granting of privi
leges of this kind is favoring the few and injuring the many.
It is true the bill provides that truckmen may store their trucks
in the streets ouly from 6 p. m. of oue day until 8 a. m. of the
next aud on Sundays, but we know very well that if the practice
is allowed at all that it will endure at midday as well as at mid¬
night. Who is to see that each truck is taken away at 8 A. m.
each niorniug. or that it is not stored before 6 p. m. iii the even¬
ing ? We know very well that such limitations are impractica¬
ble. Tliere is just uow a rage for getting obstructions onto the
streets. If all the bills now uuder consideration at Albiiny for
assisting bootblacks to occupy the sidewalks, merchauts to ex¬
pose their goods in front of their stores aud tiucknien to occupy
the roadways are passeil our streets will be as choked up as
they were before Colonel Waiing entered upon his very vigor¬
ous aud proper crusade to terminate such nuisances. There
will be the same iuducemeiits to the growth of corruption in the
public service iu connection with the regulation of these privi¬
leges as existed prior to two years ago. What begins as a
gratuitous privilege will end by beiug something to be got only
by payment in au illicit way, and vrc will h.ive to do over
agaiu what was doue by the agitatiou that brought forth the
Lexow investigatiou. We (h> uot wish to see the making of a
living rendered harder for shoeblacks, truckmen or any other
honest part of the community, however humble, but they have
no right to encumber the streets with their implements of trade
any more thau the more prosperous. But the bill is only osten¬
sibly for Ihe relief of these. The streets are for traffic and not
for trade, and if any one is allowed on the stieets for the latter
purpose it should be only iu the most limited and restricted
way. As for the truckmen, they seem to have got aloug very
well without the use of the streets in the past year or two, and
it must be admitted by any imiiartial observer that the streets
have got aloug much better without tbem. Moreover, the sus¬
picion will arise that it is not the poor truckman whom the bill
is most directly intended to beuetit, but the rich brewer and
others equally opulent who use vehicles for the delivery of their
goods throughout the city, and who are perfectly able to pay
for the truck storage they require.
ri-HE clumsy attempt to give to some scheming individuals
-»- hiding behind nonentities control of Central Park below
65th street for exhibition purposes—whether Barnum shows or
such like, we do not know—d isclo.ses one of the worst abuses that
exists at Albany. The bill il self does not deserve any attention,
because if the Legislature was insane enough to pass it neither
the Ma.vor of the city nor the Governor of the State could pos¬
sibly approve it, aud it wmild the-eby fail of Ihe ueces.sary con¬
stitutional indorsements. It is not probable, now that it has
received public attention, that the bill will ever be heard of
again. What dots deserve attention is the fact that the bill
could pass through the Senate into a committee and be there a
fortnight withoutitsexistencebtingknownoutsideof a few con-
spinators who were concerned in getting it through if the fates
were propitious to evil doing. It may be .singular that any body
of seemingly sane men could think they could pass a meas¬
ure of such importance without public attention being called to
it <at some time before tin.il passage, but the act of smuggling
the bill into the Seuate aud committee was not singular at all.
In fact, it is a common practice for bills to be hidden away and
lost from view iu the awful mass of legislative suggestion that
is annually preseuted. People whose interests are menaced by
these bills do uot become aware of their existence until near the
end of the ses.sion, wheu there is little chauce to be heard in op¬
position and when perhaps it is altogether too late to defeat them,
aud sometimes not until they have become law. This not only
stifles fair and free discussion, but it also encourages corruption
.and blackmailing in and from Albany. It will be thought th.at this
is bad enough, but this is not the worst feature of the practise.
Its most objectionable phase is that those who ought to know
better aie quite wi'liug that resort should be had to these un¬
derhand luetliods if their owu selHsli ends are served thereby.
It isou a par with the iininorality of the New York merchant,
disclosed by the Lexow police investigation, which was silent
over the wholesale corruption and tyranny of the police when
such silence si cured special favors to individuals. It is the
principle of. What do I care for the other fellow 'J still strongly