September 30, 1899.





KECORD AND   GUTDE.





47^-







Drv&Tii) p flEA.L EswE.BuiLDijJo A;R,c^flTECTUl^E,Hoiis0lou)DegouatioU,
B^/s[^/ESS Afin Thèmes of CetIer^L IKteiiesi.

PRICE    PER    YEAR    IN    ADVANCE    SIX    DOLLARS.

FiMishcd every Saturday.

TELEPHONE,                                                    CORTLAMDT 1370.

OotnmuzieatloDs should be addreesed to

C. W. SWEET, 14-16 Vftfley Street.

J. 1. LTNDSEY,-Business Manager.

"Entered ai the Pfst-O'Qïce at New l'orle, jV. T., assecond^clasg matter,"





Vol. LXIV.





SEPTEMBER 30, 1S99.





No. 1646





EVERYTHING in Wall Street now dépends on the rates for
money. While funds are as hard tO' olatain as at présent,
no news can hâve a bénéficiai efEect on values, and this' explains
why the very fiattering operating statemen'ts is&ued this week by
some of the great railroad companies failed to raise the prices
of their stocks. Thèse statements and the high rates for money
.ought to open the way for htiying some good stocks oheaply in
the near future. All the operating statements whlch make fav¬
orable impressions at flrst view, do not maiutain those impres¬
sions after examination. In some instances the proportion of op¬
erating expenses is so low as to raise a doubt as to whether some
skinning is not being praeticed, and whether the needs of a year
cr two hence will not make similar statements then impossible.
The sanguineness that lias lately had disastrous conséquences in
Tractions and Industrials has not been altoge-ther absent from
the manipulation of Rails, and considérable discrétion should be
used in buying at anything near présent figures. With something
in the neighborhood o'f a billion of gold in the country we are
again importing the métal, which says a good deal for the extent
to which business has been expanded on this side of the Atlantic.
la the circumstances the importation of goid is only a moderate
beneflt; \t, helps the situation and prevents stringency, but it
must also, ia the présent condition of the foreign money markets,
compel sales from abroad in our security market and so keep
prices on the downward tack and induce liquidation at home. The
immédiate future is brightened by tiie promise of large additions
to local pecuniary resources as a resuit of the Dewey célébration
and oif the distribution of Octo'ber interest, the préparations for
both of wbich bave already had something to do with the hard¬
ening O'f rates for money, which their occurrence ought in a cor¬
responding measure to relieve.





THE great interests that control those wonderful sources of
information that move stock markets before cabinets hâve
risen or décisions of courts hâve been delivered, bave at no time
appeared to share Lhe gênerai alarm over the Transvaal situa¬
tion.   To-day, for some cause inexplicable ta the modest student
of politics who gets his data from tbe outside, the cleaning of the
Blate by the Iast British dispatch is supposed to bave further in¬
creased the chances for peace.    If this thing keeps on this way
it will be as funny as the innocent acceptanee of the lion from
Cecil Rhodes by the Transvaal delegates when in Cape Town, and
its indignant return when lhe présent arrived and the people at
hcme at last saw the allegory in the little incident.   Having taken
the view we hâve of the whole Transvaal affiair it does not sur¬
prise us to learn that August was another record-breaking month
in Rand gold production', notwithstanding that that was a month
of crises and of announcements Lhat^war was just about to begin.
The return for the month was of 459,709 ozs., and for the year cf
3,502,048 ozs, to compare with 2,697,917 ozs.  in the same seven
months of 1898, and lesser amounts for corresponding periods of
any previous year.   The European financial situation résolves it
self into one of money, the condition of that market being nard
like our own with this différence, that abroad it is necessary to
resort to extraordinary measures to protect the existing stocks
of gold.    Until the new year needy borrowers are likely to feel
the pinch of want and enterpi-ise to be checked by an absence of
free flowing funds.   A government report estimâtes the increased
buying power of the British people created by increases of wagcF
in 1SÔ8 at $25,000,000;  this increased pay was accompanied by a
small decrease in the average hours of work.   Of the total num¬
ber of persons, 37,777, affected by the change of hours, more than
one-half were building trade operatives.    Among  Australasian
mining Industries that of silver and lead bas proved the most sta-
ble and Jess sti'bject to liguidatioa and reorgaaization than ptier





liaes. The foolish talk of boycotting the Paris Exposition of
1900 has ceased. In connection with the Exposition it is stated
that the first portion of the metropolitau railway cannot be com¬
pleted by the date of the opening, April 15th, though it iS' hoped-
it will be by June 15th, when the real rush of visitors will prob¬
ably not hâve been begun. The Western Railway of France was
recently unable to obtain 20 locomotives it needed at home, anà
only ten abroad; it had to undertake the construction of the re¬
maining ten at its own shops. At Berlin the question of the mo¬
ment is, of course, money, and the bank returns are carefully
scanned for indications of the situation, but the resuit is not at
all promising. The growing prosperity of Prussia is mirrored
in the reports of the savings' institutions for 1897, and the pre¬
ceding 14 years, which hâve just been published. Savings de¬
posits increased during 1897 by more than $375,000,000, and dur¬
ing the last three years by nearly $1,000,000,000. The increase last
year was over three-fourths as large as tbe total deposits in is83^





R





The Realty Market

HOUSE RENTING IN  BRON'X  BOROUGH.

OUGHL>Y speaking, the building movement in Bronx may Bs;
said to bave orignated with the passage of the ordinance
which reduced tbe Elevated Railway fare from Tremont to the-
Battery to 5 cents, and which went into effect in 1894. The year
following this réduction, the number of houses projected in the
Trans-Harlem district rose some 54 per cent., while eaeh succeed¬
ing twelvemonth's building statistics hâve surpassed those of its
immédiate predecessor, It was not untH 1898, however, that the
constructional movement assumed such proportions as'to create
a fear of overbuilding. From January, 1898, to July, 1899, plans
were filed for 1,329 flats and 1,166 dwellings, with a housing ca¬
pacity of, say, 62,000 persons, counting ten families to each flat"
and one to each dwelling. The buildings projected during the
first half of the présent year were disproportionately numerous. .
but, oa the other hand, increasing cost of construction is mate¬
rially reducing the projections for the current six months. The:
majority oi houses begun this year are prohahjy not yet com--
pleted. Nevertheless, including vacancies left over from 1S97, we
may assume that during the past eighteen months new housing.
accommodations for 62,000 people hâve been thrown upoa tho
market.

The Health Board estimâtes that the population of the borough-
increased some 26,400 between July, 1S9S, and July. 1899, which
would indicate an increase of 39,700, round numbers, from Jan.-
uary, 1898.    lhe Health Board'K estimate, however, is a purely-
geometrical calculation bas'id upon the police census of 1895, ané
merely shows wliat the natural increase would be ln the abseace
of immigration,    The calculation aegjects, not only the immigra¬
tion of the year immediately past, but also the incrément from
this source during the period which intervened since 1S95, so that
the farther we go from the basis of calculation the greater be¬
comes the divergence of error.   It is a significant fact that, while
despite heavy immigration, the Health Board estimâtes the ex¬
isting population to be only some 163,500, so far back as 1897 lo¬
cal statisticians, using the registratioa of voters as a foundation
calculated it at 200,000.

We ShaU, consequently, receive little assistance from such data,
as are at hand concerning the incrément of population since the
beginning of 1898.    Nevertheless, the fear of overbuilding is un¬
doubtedly in a large measure grounded on a gross undervalua^
tion of that incrément.   The argument will run somewhat in tbis
fashion;    The housing capacity has increased 62,000;   the pop¬
ulation has, according to the Health Board, increased only 39,700.
This leaves an excess, in housing capacity, of 22,300.    However,"
as has been seen, the estimate as regards population is certaialy"
inadéquate.    Unfortunately,  the Health  Board's  legal-tenement
census, whieh is an actual count, not, like the estimate of the gên¬
erai population, a geometrical calculation, has not been totaled .
up for Bronx, so that whatever corrective it might supply remains
for the moment unavaiJable.    In view of the inconciusiveness ot
censal statistics the only just test of the theory of overbuilding
will be furnished  by the renting market.

A canvas of the borough made this week brought out a pi-ac-
tically unanimous expression on the part of agents to the eiîect
tbat the supply of oae and two-family houses in désirable loca¬
tions is insufficient to meet the demand, while, in apartments,
the oversupply, which is, perhaps, not so large as might hare
been expected, is coniined chiefly to 5-room flats. It was generally
remarked that increasing coat of construction Is aeting as an
important check to the further productioa of the common type
of flat, and some actual cases were instanced wbere work has
been suspended, although lhe excavationss are completed and the
foundations laid. Lccal conditions, therefore, unquestionably
favor an invesiment movemeui in the coming brokerage season,
primarily in small houses and, sympathetically, iu other forms of-





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