Jiijiuary   11., 1902.





RECORD AND   GUIDE.





47







Wil.





DntoiEO ID .Real D^m.. Buildit/g ftpcKirEcruRE ^wsqJoid DEOOifnml.
"■^     ■    BusiUE.is AflD Themes Of GetIer^ IKIERPT.

PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE SIX   DOLLARS

Published eVerp Satardaff

Communlcallono should be addressed to
C. W. SWEET,  14-16 Vesey Street, New YorK





I   T, UNDSET, BuolnosB Ma.nB,gBr





Telephone, Cortlandt 3167





■Entered at the Post Office ai New Torfc. N. Y.. as aecnnd-r^laas ■mait<T."

"'                           No.  1765.





Vol. LXIX.





JANUARY 11, 1902.





THE BEOOBJ) AND GUIDE QUABTERLY.

The expense attending the preparation and pubUcatloii of ihe
Record and Guide Qitarterlji makes it veeessarv that the pnee
slwuld be advanced. Consequently, hereafter, the charge io an¬
nual siibscribei s will be ^10,-ivhich sum will pay for three qnar-
tertij numbers and one annual number v-ontainmo all the reeords
of the year. The charge for sinole quarterly numbers will be
fS each, a)id that for mi-glc annual n.umbers jlO eaah. Ihis
ehanaeis made in confidence thai those who have hdheito vsed
this invaluable work will aapreeiaU its justice. There is no other
part oj the eau.ipm.cnt of a real estate office so useful and so
Aandy, or to be obtained ut aaything Uks ao small a cost.______

A SOMEWHAT turbulent week has seen the stock market
drop back into the professionalism from whicb at our
last writing it seemed about to emerge. The breaks in prices
tJiat came early in tbe week together with less favorable news,
the prospect of a renewal of gold exports, etc., apparently
frightened away the unprofessional buyer, so that business con¬
tracted materially in both speculative and investment lines.
On the whole, this is much more satisfactory than a booming
market would have been in the present condition of prices
At the same time the professional has a good field to work in, be¬
cause if tbe public are not buying tbey are not selling securities,
and we have much the same condition of affairs that has fol¬
lowed other big movements, when a flush, and consequently
over-confident professional element played with values through
pools and sucb like combinations, and so provided a good
market for the legitimate and everyday realizations. Of course,
with such a state of affairs the general tendency of prices is
downward, with the usual reserve as to exceptions. One of the
most conspicuous of the latter is Manhattan Elevated, which
has advanced in the face of a general decline, not so much upon
the success of electric traction announced this week, but more
on the theory that events are rapidly tending to bring about
a condition of affairs that mi:st compel lhe great railroads en¬
tering the city to seek the aid of Manhattan in order to bring
in their passenger traffic and distribute it expeditiously through
Qie city. As to the specialties generally there is the greatest
of manipulation of all in these, and the uninitiated needs to
be careful how he handles them. Outside of the stock market
there is no diminution of cheerfulness; business continues in
good volume, and lessening speculation is tending toward fur¬
ther ease in  money.





WHILE London appears as a rather prominent seller in the
New York market, it does not appear to be because it
is in need. Probably the selling has a double motive—to secure
prices that are not expected to last, aud to obtain means for
Ijarticipatlng in buying movements that have begun at home.
There is no doubt about the improved feeling in Great Britain,
and that it has fair ground to rest upon is shown by the reports
from South Africa and the returns of foreign trade, which, for
December, displayed moderate increases in both imports and
-exports, though, of course, for the year large declines. The
Bank of England holds its discount rate at the high point of
4 per cent., but it has returned to the market a large amount
of the funds gathered together to meet the lequiienients ac¬
companying transition from one year to another. On tbe Con¬
tinent the conditions are different. Paris remains pecuniarily
strong, and there is comparative ease in money elsewhere, but
the signs of productive recuperation are wanting. The doleful
strain of the Kaiser and his Chancellor, whsn commenting
on the economic condition of Germany, this week, may be ex¬
aggerated for effect upon the Reichstag and the Prussian Diet,
but that it has some reason is not to be denied. Among other
signs of bad times it is reported that 100,000 fewer Christmas
trees were sold in Berlin last Christmas than usual.   This may





seem a trivial thing to report, but as a matter of fact, to those
who know the German people and the importance they attach
to the Tanenbaum in their Christmas observances, this fact is
full of significance of the poverty of tbe working classes, pre¬
suming, of course, that the Christmas trade of other points
have the same characteristics as that of Berlin. However, when
signs of improvement are found in Great Britain, it is not prob¬
able that they are far away from its European neighbors. It,
is only that the richest and best endowed feel the improvement
;first





Realty Securities and the Outside Investor.

FROM the individual to the partnership, and from the part¬
nership to the corporate is the train of effort traceable in
all lines of business. It is. therefore, natural and inevitable
that the corporation should become tbe dominating factor in
real estate and constructional activity. The individual seeks
a partner to help him carry the burden of effort and pecuniary
risk, when these become loo heavy for his own strength and
means, but as a rule he expects this help to. come from another,
or others of like commercial sympathies with himself. With
the corporation it is different. That is usually formed by a
few men who undertake the technical direction of a particular
enterprise—who can supply all the strength, but lack in whole,
or-part, the capital. This they seek elsewhere, and while those
who contribute it may be partners iu the concern, in the sense
that all stockholders iii a company are partners, or owners,
technical knowledge of the business carried on is not an ac¬
companying or (lualifying requisite. Recognizing this fact the
law has long encouraged these unions of knowledge and capital
by giving them rights and privileges embodied in franchises;
and, in comparatively recent years, has gone a step further
and made the risk of any one individual in the corporation
simply the amount he shall voluntarily name; that is, except
in rare cases, the amount of the stock he shall ask for.

This limitation of liability has done more than any other
one thing to develop trade and commerce. Without it it would
have been impossible to have formed the great combinations
that have created the vast facilities of manufacture, trade and
transit that are the crowning achievement of civilization. With
this legal protection so long in existence, it is rather surprising
that the development of realty has not been in corporate hands
sooner, and did not have to wait until to-day, so to say. for
that to take place. There have been many companies formed
to carry out special operations, but these have generally been
small affairs, really partnerships availing themselves of the
legal limit of liability for the benefit of their several members,
and whose franchises have been allowed to lapse as soon as
the particular operation was completed. To-day. we are face to
face wilh a very different kind of corporation. When the course
of events compelled—in the sense that everything is achieved
nnfler compulsion of the will or necessity—the erection of high
buildings upon large plots of laud, it became obvious that but
Lompaiatively few of these could be created by individuals, be¬
cause of the large cost involved in each ease, and the corporate
owner and builder betame a necessity iu order to secure the
rccjuisite union of technical knowledge aud capital which do not
ordinarily go together in sufficient Quantities. Besides this the
profit promised by this class of enterprise enlisted the attention
of some of tbe professional organizers of capital, and the result
was new additions to the list of tall buildings, as, for instance,
tbe Eowiing Green Building, whicb was built from money raised
from the sale of boiids aud stock by a well-lvnown banking
house.

But so far as this city is concerned the public subscription
feature has until now been absent from this line of business,
and it requires this to give it perfect form. In Boston, we be¬
lieve, it has been done at the outset of operations, and has been
successful, mainly through the standing and representations
of the house that invited thi' subscription. There is little doubt
that New York is moving toward that point. One large bank¬
ing house is to-day offering by public advertisements au issue
of bonds secured by mortgage upon a colossal downtown office
building, and this, in our opinion, marks an era in which the
small investor will be more closely connected with the builder
and land operator here. In going over a list of incorporations
effected during 1901. the least capital of any of which was
half-a-million of dollars, we find among them twenty-eight
whose purpose were either dealing in land and buildiugs, own¬
ership in land or buildings, or constructing buildings in this
city, and whose aggregate capital amounted to over $50,000,000.
It follows that some of these, as well as those incorporated in
previous years, will have bonds to offer bulking so large that
they cannot disijose of them unless they secure the confidence