June 9, 1906





RECORD   AND   GUIDE





1083





HIE.





ESTABUSHED ^ m<p H 21'-^^ 186 8.
DDfrifl) p R^L EsTWi. Building A;,RcKrrE(rr(Jl^ .KouseHoid DKOf^norf.
Btfsit/Ess a)IdThzkies Of GrfJ£R.d 1Kter.esi,

PRICE   PER   YEAR    IN    ADVANCE    EIGHT   DOLLARS

Publlsfitd   eVert/   Saiurdasi

CommunlcatlonB should bo addresBOd to
C.   W.   SWEET,   14-16   Vesey  Street,   New York
1                                    Telephono, Cortlaudt 3157

"Entered at tht I'ost O^ffice al 2veio York, W. Y., aa second-clasi matter."





Vol, LXXVII.





JUNE 9, 1906.





No. 199o





INDEX TO  DEPARTMENTS.
Advertising Section.

Page.                                                     Page.

Cement    ....................xxiii  Law.........................xl

Consulting   Engineers   ..........x  Lumber..................xxviii

Clay Products  ................xxii  Machinery................... iv

Contractors and  Builders   ......v   Meta!   Work   ................xvii

Electrical  Interests   ..........viii  Qui^k Job Directory  ........xxvii

Fireproofing   ..................ill   Real   Estate   ................xiii

Granite   ....................xxiv  Roofers Sc Rooflng Materials.xxvl

Heating   ....................xx  Stoue   .....................xxiv

Iron  and  Steel   ..............xviii   Wood Products   ............xxix





THERE is not a great deal of importance to be said about
the financial markets of tbe week. They are dull all tbe
world over, swaying idiy to and fro, the reasons for an advance
outnumbering all arguments for a decline, and sporadic advances
continuing. Pacifit^ coast stock sold tliis week at the highest
price in Its history and many shares are higher than before
the San Francisco fire. But the market as a wliole drags and it
is doubtful if an entirely new enterprise could be financed in
any money market of the world. This is owing to the com¬
bined effect of labor troubles, corporation baiting and the un¬
mistakable popular unrest with its Socialistic proclivities. Let
the most attractive imaginable proposition for a new railroad be
brought to the bankers of the world to-day and they would
laugh at it. The fact is that the existing railways are selling
for much under their value, whether measured by earnings or
cost of reproduction, and until their market price more nearly
squares with their intrinsic value as improved real estate with
big earning power, naturally schemes to buy rights of way and
terminals, and to build new railways thereon must languish.
It must be said, however, that this state of affairs prevents
paralleling such as prevailed twenty-five years ago and leaves
the existing railways legatees of the full growth of the country
in their respective territories. Later this immunity from com¬
petition will find reflection in higher prices than ever before,
for good railroad stocks. That reason among others influences
these remarks, in the belief that low-priced railroad shares of
solvent, growing companies constitute the cheapest form of in¬
vestment in real estate; and already such shares are creeping
up in this dull market. The share issues of the following com¬
panies, all of them selling at a low price, have advanced in the
past month from five to eight points each, and what is more
impressive is that they hold the advance. They are: Atchison,
Chesapeake and Ohio, Big Four, Colorado Southern, the Eries,
Kansas City Southern, Missouri Pacific, Peoria & Eastern,
Wabash and Wisconsin Central. Money continues easy, as was
here predicted several weeks ago. A fiurry. however, about the
^rst of July would not be surprising, but it does not seem that
anything else in the way of stiff rates is in sight. Nevertheless,
for new enterprises, or any proposition to lock up money, that
commodity is and probably will be hard to obtain until at least
after the elections in the autumn, and it is seen what the public
temper is on the subjects that have been under discussion since
the last presidential election.





WITH the rate of interest continuously higher in the United
States than in European countries, it would be no great
cause of surprise if European lenders found greater advantage
in making loans, on good security, to American corporations
than to those at home. The most solvent and substantial Euro¬
pean investment besides paying a lesser rate of interest for the
money invested have usually a much smaller vista of prospec¬
tive profit than those of the United States. And there is an¬
other reason for the foreign partiality shown for American se¬
curities. Practically since the holding of .the Peace Conference
at The I-Iague there has been in progress some international
war.    The Spanish-Amercan war began the circle, the goer-





English war in South Africa followed and the Russian-Japanese
war completed it. In each of these contests there was one
European nation engaged and to furnish the requirements of
these contests, Spain borrowed from France, and England and
Russia borrowed from France and Germany. England placed
large loans at home during the progress of the Boer war and
furnished^ with Germany, much of the money for the successive
Japanese loans during the progress of the war in the far East.
With the practical cessation of hostilities everywhere, large
sums of money in Europe, heretofore available for the require¬
ments of national loans or invested in operations directly or in¬
directly connected with the prosecution of foreign wars, arms
and ammunition, food supplies, clothing and steel for ships, are
released, and this iarge surplus of money, always accumulating
in Europe, can be used to the best advantage, at present, in the
United Stales. Therefore, the placing of loaus for American se¬
curities abroad is resijonsive to conditions which are easily ex¬
plained and as easily understood.





'-pHE HOTEL DISTRICT of New York city has'always been
A fixed by the landing places within the city, and originally
the hotels of New York—hotels in their day, taverns in this
day—were in the neighborhood of the Battery, As the city
grew and incoming passengers landed at ferries on the east and
west sides, the hotels were located along the line of Broadway,
and they have continued to be on Broadway since. The ter¬
minal changes now under way in this city, the construction of
the Pennsylvania tunnel, the improvement of the Grand Gentral
approaches and the connection at Forty-second street and Park
avenue with the Long Island Railroad, make it definitely cer¬
tain that the future hotel district of New York will be between
Thirty-first street and Seventh avenue, the Pennsylvania ter¬
minal, and Forty-second street and Park avenue, the New York
Central terminal, and will further include the territory to be
reached by car lines converging at either of theae points. Al¬
ready two mammoth hotels, the Manhattan and the Belmont,
practically front the Grand Central. The neighborhood of the
Pennsylvania is already served by the Navarre, the York, the
Breslin, the Gilsey, the Grand, the Herald Square, the Seville,
and the Imperial, With the completion of the Pennsylvania
terminal, hotels especially convenient for it will, no doubt, be
added, and the permanence of New York's "hotel district" is
thus likely to be fixed for many years to come. The character
of permanence will enable the projectors of such enterprises to
build them on a scale of stability not prudent while there was
uncertainty as to the retention of profitable patronage in the
neighborhood.





T N a bulletin issued recently from Washington by the Depart-
-■■    ment of Commerce and Labor, municipal ownership in Great
Britian is exhaustively considered by Frederic C, Howe, Ph. D.
Critics call municipal ownership in that country municipal so¬
cialism—but whatever its  ultimate   significance   may   be.   Dr.
Howe does not think it socialistic in intent.   In its beginnings
municipal ownership was not even an outgrowth of tiie labor
movement;   it came rather from the mercantile or commercial
classes.    The report is based on a study of the leading cities in
England, Scotland and Ireland during last year.   The ofiiciai in¬
vestigation was conducted by personal inquiry and conference
with officials and citizens of the cities in question.   Thus far the
movement has had with it the large element known  in  Great
Britain as the middle class.    From it the majority of the town
councils are made up.   It is claimed that in the British Isles tiiat
municipal ownership stands for improved service, for business
thrift, for the relief of the taxpayer from the burdens of taxa¬
tion and for increased revenue for the community.   An analysis
of public electric "tramway" accounts of various cities in Great
Britain and Ireland shows that Glasgow in 1903-04 with a popu¬
lation  of  a million  carried  one  hundred and eighty-nine  mil¬
lions of passengers over seventy-one miles of track and showed
a surplus of $1,256,000.    Manchester with a population of 750,-
000 carried 121,000,000 passengers during tbe year over eighty
miles of tract, the surplus over and above all expenses amount¬
ing to |5S;i,000 of which amount .$2-14,000 was a contribution to
the relief of taxation.   Liverpool's surplus was $469,000 of which
about J25S,000, went to lessen taxation.   Where there was a dif-
icit it was generally trifling except in the cases of Oldham and
Brighton where the losses respectively were |24,000 and $3S,000.
The gas supply of Birmingham, England, was acquired in 1S75
by purchase from private companies.    It is one of the best pub¬
lic gas undertakings  in  the United  Kingdom,    The charge  is
low and ranges from  45 cents to 61 cents per thousand cubic
feet according to the consumption.   For public lighting a charge
of 24 cents per thousand cubic feet is made.    The average net
pric? which the city receives from all classes ig §2 cents per