Please note: this text may be incomplete. For more information about this OCR, view
About OCR text.
Record and Guide.
243
August 24, 1895
¥0
Mil.
U M^^ IRfift.
g:?liywpH2Ul>1868,
DeAtEJ) io ftA,t ESTABLISHED^CKlTECTURE .HoUSHfOU) DEQ(I|(inf|
B"-Estaji.BuildiKg Af'^f'^^^^^''*^"'*"
PRICE, PER ir/ESSA^bTHEM^S^VANCE, SIX DOLLARS.
VEAR IN Ariy Saturday.
Telbphome. Published evei " â– Cortlandt 1370
(Jommuuieatlons sliould , - - • i to
• addreasefWEET, 14-16 Vesey Street.
J. 1. LINDSEY. BusinesB Manager.
Brooklyn Office, 276-282 Wasuington Street,
Orp. Post Ofpicp.
'* Entered at the Post-office at JV^eip York, N. Y., as second-elass nmtter."
VOL. LVI.
AUGUST 24, 1895.
No. 1,43*2
THERE is :i new demand for interest and dividend-payiuji
securities wliicli is art'ectiiig those issties wliich are feasou-
ubly stue of continuing a return ou the investment aud which
are selling at rehitively low prices, such as the guaranteed bonds
otthe Missouri, Kansas &. Texas, the new Atcliisoii 4s, Wabash
jiiniov issues and many others. The absohitely sure bonds liavc
longbeen out ot the niaikct, except in small lots, aud these are
snapped ui» the instant they appear. This broadening ol: the
bond market is a iiatiiial otttcome of the cheapness of |money ;
in I'act; it is rather suipiisiug that some pretty good bouds con¬
tinue to sell on a 5 per cent basis and oyer when only a partial
response is made to tbe mouey ott'ered to btni'owers at very
low rates. Buyers aie fottified, too, by the fact that there is no
falling ott' iu the general busiuess of the country and that every
day brings a great coru crop nearer security. A great deal of
business is waiting for this crop to be put beyoud auy doubt,
whicb, when the right time comes, will make manufacturers and
jobbers busy. There are also signs that the inavket for foreign
exchange is about to take ou a less menacing asuect, and that
the end [is Deariug of gold shipments for the tiiuo being. The
way iu which the boud syndicate has maintained the gold reserve
iu the Treasury is very creditable to it, and is having a very
good effect ou the public here.
BUSINESS ou the Loudou Stock Exchauge seems to consist
almost Ayliolly ot purchases and .sales of " KafGr" sluu'es.
These issues have not only niiuntaiticd their values long after
the time when a collapse was predicted, but have siuee made a
veiy considerable advance aud show no sign of weakeiiiog.
This beiug the case and it being coutrary to the oft-repeated
opinion of the tiuancial press, generally unusually well in¬
formed, it follows that there is more in the South African mines
than was ever dreamt of. The output of gold is simply
euormoiis aud the mines are still young. The influence ot the
realization of such great wealth cannot fail to be very great
ou the contiguous country in a very wide radius, aud the lime
has come wheu it appears clear that South Africa is the uew
country which will for a good many years to come occupy the
capital and energies of the entei'prisiug among the Euglish
people. There are already under discussion schemes for its
wide commercial and political development; it is fast becoming
the country that attracts the eyes of the adveuturer, and capital
will undoubtedly flow thither in the uext ten years aa it will in
uo other direction. We have said all along that Europe will
uot agaiu favor Americau securities as it was wont to do until
our curreocy has been put iuto a position where it caunot be
affected by political agitation or busiuess dilHcuIties. The fetir
that underlies this may be groundless, but as we have to deal
with facts its existence cannot be overlooked. That it does
exist is shown by the comments and correspondence of the
public press. Recently the London Economist voiced the gen¬
eral opinion iu saying: "A currency position which depends
upon continuous manipulation of tbe exchanges is essentially
unsound, and as long as it is suttercd to coutinue investors here
cannot be e.\,pected to shake ott' the feeling of distrust, nor,
notwithstanding the improvement tbat has already taken place,
can confidence be felt iu the steatly development of business in
the States."
PROPERTY-OWNERS and residents on llth avenue are
occupied in tho consideratiou of a question of much
importance to them, namely, the matter of the running of cars
by the New York Ceutral Railroad Company on that thorough¬
fare. The half-century franchise which the company had to
operate over certain thoroughfares in this city under certain
conditions will expire next year, and as it will assuredly try to
retain a privilege that is worth a great deal of money to it, how
much it is hard to say, but certainly many huudrcd of thousands
of dollars, the city in geueral and the property-owner.s on the
occupied thoroughfares are assuredly wise iu begiuniug at once
the cousideratiou of the terms ou which this privilege .shall be
continued to the railroad conipauy, or whether iu fact the con¬
ditions of business life iu this city do not now require that it
should cease altogether. The latter view is the oue accepted by
tlie West Side Citizen's Association which has already
by petition requested the Board of Aldenuen not to
renew the privilege. It is quite unnecessary to say
that the New York City of to-day is a very ditt'erent city to what
it was fifty years ago, and there are a great mauy obvious rea¬
sons wliy the practice of running trains of freight cars through
auy of the streets should be discontinued. At the same tiuie the
shipping interests of New York have had aud will continue to
have a great inilueuee upon the development of the city aud
the question of continuing or ending the running of cars aloug
llth avenue and iuto Hudson street ought uot to be decided
uutil all the considerations involved have been carefully
weighed. On one point, however, there ought not to be any
doubt and that is, if it should be decided to permit the coutinu-
auce of this practice, it ought uot to be the exclusive rightof auy
one carrying company, but should be made a partof amorecom-
preheusive plan for a very much needed enlargement of tbe
shipping facilities of this great commercial centre.
WHERE do the newspapers get tlieir pictures of emaciated
infancy with which they endeavor to frighten good citi¬
zens into contributing to their open-air funds? The visitor to
the tenement house districts does not find tbem iu such alarm¬
ing numbers, and the policemen on the beats iu those districts
have anythiug but a poor opiuiou of the health aud vigor of the
.iuvenile poptilatiou whose pranks aud mischievous antics they
tiud it difticult to repress. The conveutionalizing tendency, that
is the acceptance of a few phases of a given subject or condition
as a i)icttii-e of tbe whole, is so strong that people have come to
see iu the tenement only the sickness, vice aud squalor just as
they are apt to think of more fortunate regions as the abodes of
health, luxury and comfort. Sickness tinds its way into the
jjalace as well as the hovel and health iuto the hovel as well as
into the palace; probably, by reason of the greater simplicity of
life, more iu the former thau iu tho latter. Tliey are each assuredly
mitigated or aggravated by the surrounding conditions, but
more often by the measure of sensibility or the ability to bear
suttering. The laborer whose brawny arms wield a shovel or a
pick iu a way that would be impossible to the delicately iiatuied
man, is uot merely often a resident of a tenement district but
its product; he was born aud raised there. The streets of what
are known as the congested districts, swarm with infantile
' health, strength aud beauty, as auy one can see who will
take a walk through them. The furnishings of mauy of the
tenementsthemselves are anythiugbutpoor, and neither is the
condition or location distasteful to their occupants. The hap¬
piest day of the hired girl is when she lettvesher well-appointed
place of service to visit her kindred in the tenements, and she
will surrender every advantage that she enjoys in her em¬
ployer's house to take up her life iu oue so soou as she can get
married—much to her mistress'aniazenieut aud disgust. This
cannot be due wholly to insensibility or to ignoraucc. The oppor¬
tunities of comparisou are given her. There must be in the
tenement something that makes life sweeter aud more attractive
to her than she cau command elsewhere. Why, therefore, cau¬
uot the public representation of the tenement be more complete,
with the better and wholesomer phases brought out instead of
always the disagreeible aud those which are as a matter of fact
the least frequent? Admitting that tenement life is a very long
way, indeed, from the best for auy kind of people, and keeping
in view the need of something better, it is still unnecessary to
make the picttiie blacker than it is, especially as the tenement
caunot be displaced by any perfect mode of living because of
individual as well as the social conditions, except by a loug
aud slow course of gi-adual iminovement.
IN the midst of a universal belief tbat wc are a rushing, enter¬
prising people, the individual does uot like to find himself
pushed too hard by new comers and customs. The older men
laud the times past as their fathers did and as their sous' sons
will do. The old time real estate agent is no exception to these
rules. Innovations on the manner of doing business to which
he bas beeu accustomed are by no means to his taste, though it
is hard to see how the creation and development of real property
could have been possible in a rapidly growing city like New
York without an endless variety of ways for its acquisition.
Still there are, it must be admitted, some things iu this con¬
nection which must be trying to some of the old timers, such
for instance .is the practice of working out the mortgage, often
representing nearly the whole of the purchase money. This
practice was described not long ago as follows : A man having
a small amount of cash buys a tenement <jr small flat with a
very heavy mortgage. He lives in the least desirable of tho