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r 26, 1895
Record and Guide,
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^ ESTABDSHE3)^AWCH2Ui^l86^
^5)E^Td> p ReaJ-Estaje-Builoij/g ^cKrrEeTut^XousEtfOiDp£«^*^
.BKsDfcss Aifo Themes of GtifeRpl jlftE^pg,;
PRICE, PER YEAR IN ADVANCE, SIX DOLLARS S
Published every Saturday.
Tblephonb,......Cortlandt i37o
Oommunicatlons ahould be addressed to
C. W. SWEET, 14-16 Vesey Street.
/, 1. LINDSET. Businfiss Manaqer.
Brooklyn Office, 276-282 Washingtok Street,
Opp, Post Offiob.
" Enl^ed at the Post-ojffiee at New York.N, F., as second-class matter."
Vol. LVI.
OCTOBER 26, 1895.
No. 1,441
The Record and Guide wiil furnish you with daily detailed reports
of all building opei-ations, eompiled to snii your business specifically, for
14 cents a day. Yon are thus Icept informed of the entire mat'ket for your
goods. No guess work. Every fact verified. Ahundant capital and the
thirty years' experience of Thv. Ei':cord a.vd Go iTi'e guarantee tlie com¬
pleteness and authenticity of this service. Send to 14 and 16 Vesey street
for informal4,on.
PEEVALENT oouditions ou the stock market are still apa,-
tlietic. It there is an iutiica^ioii of value for future guid¬
ance it willbe fouud in the boud list, where there are some signs,
in the hardenina' of prices, of uew buying. All tlie Northei-o
Pacitic bouds for mstauce, have been quite strong this week,
from whicb it may be surmised that the prospects for the reor¬
ganization of the Northero Pacific Compauy are brighter and
nearer. In this connection it is proper to soy that Mr. Brayton
Ives and his friends deserve a great deal of credit for the work
they have done, not ouly from the Northeuu Pacific security
holders, but from security holders in this country in g-eneral. It
has always been asserted that wheu onee auy paitieular party
hadgot bold of a railroad property, it was impossible to get it
away from ttem. We have always held the contrary, and that
it only needed staying fighting powers to get the courts to do tbe
right thing. The success of Ihe Ives party h;is in'oved that
we were right aud we are sure, further, that if tbe cases agaiust
the people who were responsible for the downfall of theproperty
and who milked it for so many years are pushed iu the courts
with the same pertinacity, they can be compelled to make
restitution. The courts attord remedies, if they can ouly
be reached, and obstruction to the application of such
remedies has become what it is simply because in¬
jured parties would not insist upon their rights. A
few fights to a finish, with the wrong-doers inevitably ihe losers,
would do mucb to impi'ove tbe moral condilioii of the proniotor
of enterprises. The securilies of Southwestern properties which
are being beared ou the cotton-crop shortage ongbt to receive
the attention of buyer,i. There is no logic in bearing these
securities because of a falling off in tlie amount of cotton pro¬
duced at tbis particular time, when the lessened production in¬
creases prices. When there is a crop failure, "bat tbe lailroads
have to fear most is a lessened buying power of tbe farmer, be¬
cause not only do they sntt'ei- the direct loss of crop freights but
iiL^o indirect and:ljiaJirer wtv-j tluough tbe I ability of the farmer
fo buy liahiinibiiiblf'- thi-Mi:s whicb make up the bulk of
BiisceUaiiooii&.fi^eiKi't. 'i!]i .-^nuthweslern roads have done well
in the IfiHt tT^'uyfciU'H Willi,Mi.f ciiiton low and iu small demaud,
andtiifty'shohild IH t.-doi^^ilMO in tbe year comiug with cotton
high aud Jtvirood di-nKuid, although one crop bas sbow"n a seri-
â– -•upfalliiiy iijT. IH'tlie .stock market as a whole it may be .said
'hfit while too narrow foi mucb confidence to be placed in auy
if^nion that may be formed, Ihe signs slightly favor bctterprices
\'n- the immediate future.
"ITT'AE. fear is again upou the European nations. This attack
"• has afteeted prople aud journals that have hitherto re¬
sisted contagion aud is tbeiefore all tbe more serious. It is not
that there is any necessary occasion for quarrel between auy
tft^o powers, but the circumstances of the times are such that they
offer opportunity for difference amoug all of them. It is made
a matter of remark that responsible ministers are all at their
gosts wheu nsually at this lime of the year Ihey are spread
abroad taking their holidays. The Euglish and Freiicb presses
stre engaged in a recriminative encounter, spurred ou by au
abiused mob on either side of the channel, and Ihiukiug pco])le
know tbat tbat may lead to the participation ot: he mob iuthe
quarrel with something heavier than nords, aud with tbe
editors changing places and becoming the abettoi'S of a bloody
conflict instead of the participants of a battle in whieh tlie
Tvounds are all in the feelings and the stains all of ink. The
Sultan of Turkey has eonseuted to the introduction of reforms
uiainly to relieve the di-sabilities nnder wluch his Christian sub¬
jects live. Now the question will arise has he power to enforce
thcm^ The Mabommedan priests, nobles and their followers
have tobe considered in ihis matter. The late Sultan Abdul
Aziz was something of a refornu'r under foreign dictation and
liis opera bontt'c parliament only lived long enough to exnose
the absurdity of its creation, while the Sultan himself, with a
subtile distinction appreciable to the Semitic mind, became
compulsorily a suicide, but in the coarser functions of the
Cancausian brain a victim of political murder. If the Sultan
cannot enforce the reforms forced on him by the outside powers,
who will? Then there is China, a debauched and irreclaimable
reprobate, who bas lost all nervous force and is consequently
witbout ability to reform. A ne'er-do-weel, who prefers tbe
gutter of his owu ignorance to the curtains and cushions of
someone tdse's enlightenment. Wbat is to become of China^
Tbe Salvation Army of foreign politicians will not leave him
alone, their consciences are too active for that, or, in other
words, there is too mucb in the reforming business for them to
let the Chinaman work out his own salvation. But like the good
folk iu Now York City each of the Gtveat Powers has a very great
opinion of its owu regenerating abilities, and there may come
reform wars as there have beeu religious wars. The powers
may find it uecessary to resort to artillery andironclads to find
out on which has fallen tbe divine decree to carry gi'ace totbe
Chinese. All tbis time tbe instruments of war are in sucb posi¬
tions andiu sucb hands that there is no telling what hour the
indiscretion of a. subordinate may not plunge two countries into
war aud in the end drag the others aloug with them. These are
the thoughts that are making people serious to-day. Still war
lias been more threatening thau it is now and yet the hand was
restrained, Teu years ,igo Russia aud England bad their hands
on their swords' hilts and were induced to withdraw them, as it
is to be hoped they aud the other nations who think they have
occasion f(n' quarrelling may be led again to tind peace more
aitractive than war.
â– ----------
A WITTY explanation of the Kafiir fever, made by Mr. J.
Selwin Tait, in a letter to tbe _Et'eiunf/ Posi, is tbat Lon¬
don can never take gold mines soberly, and that the recovering
appetite for speculation, following a crisis and subsequent
period of depression, is always whetted by a dose of these
issues. When for gold mines low price issues are substituted,
tbat probably esi>lains the opening phases of speculation every¬
where. The love of gambling is deep seated in the race ; many
risks that are thought to be quite legitimate business are little
else than taking chances, and wben the feeling is more pro¬
nounced the risks assumed are greater in proportion, running
from a "flyer" in a dividend-paying stock to laying down hard
cash for a sixty thousandth chance of winning a big prize in a
lottery. The recorded transactions of auy exchange will show
that actual investments are but a small fraction of the total
business, the bulk beiug made up of dealings in cats and dogs,
aud tbe poorest specimens of those despised animals at
that. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this mat¬
ter of speculation is the unbounded faith in the fairness
of the play and the belief that drawing a prize or a blank de¬
pends simply upon the niOTement of the wheel and the
accidental shuffling of the tokens caused thereby. The
public are not unaware of the fact that if everything tbat is
worthless were takeu from the eschange lists they would sink
into the smallest possible pioportious, so that the periodical
attempts to take advantage of the movements of prices is a
proof that wheu they come into the market it is in the conscious
indulgence of their gambling instincts. Of course they always
expect to win, and when the confcrjiry is the case, as it most
often is, the outci'y is one rather of bopes disappointed, than
against deliberate injury done them by the proprietors of the
wheel, wbo walk away with tbe stakes. The trouble is one tbat
caunot be cured, as the whole history of speculation shows, in
any measurable length of time, and whenever the little disturb¬
ances caused by too mucb fervor in any particular direction has
been gotten over by the removal of the dead and wounded, the
remainiug forces of the outsiders begin again the conflict with
tbeir slings aud arrows agaiust the arms of precision of the in¬
siders, l-^r this reason it is predicted that when the shaking up
in the Kaffirs bas been accomplished, specidation will begin
again in au expanded form by taking in other kinds and classes
of securities as well. For tbis rea,sou it is said that the slump
in Kaffirs is "salutary."
THE letter of E. M. Shepard on consolidation is one of the
best considered and most discriminating declarations
on that involved and vexed question which has been given out
by any public man. It is usually assumed that a categoiical
yes or no is all thnt is needed as an opinion about the unifica¬
tion of New York and ISrooklyn, but in poiut of fact, the whole
matter is so complex and requires to be considered with an eye