November 20, 1897.





Record and Guide





761













ItoÍTĩD ÎD fÎÉfL EsTATE.BuiLDIífD AjĩCJfnXCTUn.E .KoUSEIÍOID DEaOS^IloH,

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"Eiitere<l at tltc Fosi Office at New York, N. Y., as meoiid-class muíler."





Vol. LX.





NOVEMBER 20, 1897.





No. 1,549





A REVOLUTIONARY LAW.

By the passage of the Negotiabie Instruments Law the last
Legislature made many very radical changes in the legal rules
pertaining to promissory notes, checks, bonds and other similar
instruments- These changes concern nearly every business man
in the State, and ignorance about them is pretty sure to cause
trouble, if it (3oes not go further and occasion loss- People who
shall Gontinue to act as though the old !aw were in force are
not likely to avoid mistakes. Business men, our readers parti-
cularĩy, should give some study to the new law which has been
set forth in plain ĩanguage in a volume by Mr. George W. Van
Siclen. published this week, The book contaĩns not only a pop-
ularization of the law. but the statute itself minutely indexed.
It is bound in flexible leather covers. and wiU be sent to any
address for $2, and 6 cents postage, or may be obtained by ap-
plication at the offlce of the Record and Guide, 14 and 16 Vesey
street  New York city.





IT need not surprise anyone that prices oa the Stock Market
show little ehange from week to week; In fact If there is
any cause for surprise at ali, it is that they keep up as well ag
tbey do. The gentle ripplĩng movement noticeable is brought
about by the petty operatioos of professíonals on one síde or
the other, but for which utter stagnation would reign. . The
men who led the movement last summer are doing nothing
whatever; they, like the outside publíc, doubtless want to see
flrst what the temper of Congress is goíng to be, before taklng
posltion either for or against prices. The situation is essentially
a waiting one. We have alreatly esplained why this is so, and
the reasons previously given in thĩs eolumu for especting just
such a condition as now esist stand good for the îmmediate
future, It îs unnecessary to remark, too, that a dull market is
always liable to breaks, because its narrow limits make it very
difficult to dîspose of bloeks of long stoek, shoulci any for any
reason be foreed to sale. There is, apparently, no set baek in
the general busĩness sĩtuation; the time of year beĩng consid-
ered. Money is plentiful and cheap, and tbere is a great de-
mand for high-eĩass bonds with very few offering. The deeisîon
of the life insuranee companíes to reduee the interest basis of
their business allows them to buy securities at an advaneed
price, which they could not touch before, and tĩie consequence
ís that the best seeurĩties are steadily going higher, We are re-
peating the experienee of Europe of two or three years ago, by
which new record prices were made for gilt-edged issues and
shall doubtless see, as has been already seen aeross the Atlan-
tic, that this is no temporary movement but a permanent rise
in hĩgh-class stocks and bonds, and a corresponding deeline in
the value of money. Reports of railroad earuings coutinue to
be very satisfaetory, which ean ouly be due to prosperous trade.
Tbe only questiou that needs answering, aud only Congress can
answer it satisfactorily,-is, is the improvement to be permîtted
to proceed?





ANOTHER wituess comes forward to testify to the exis-
tenee and value of the Concert of the Pow-ers, iu the per-
son of the Austrian Emperor, who, iu receiving a deputation
recently, also emphasized his beiief iu the tripĩe-allianee as a
preserver of peaee. Judging from his remarks there wouĩd seem
to be no danger of this treaty betweeu Austria, Italy and Ger-
many being allowed to lapse. His declaration that Austria and
Russia sympathized with each other's views aud ambitions, is
remarkable in view of the faet that Austria, like Ru.ssia, bears
on its shield the double-headed eagle of ByzantiHm anã consid-
ers itself its heir. líowever that may be, the Emperor's remarks
eonfirm what I.iOrd Salisbury .^aid last week about the eon-
(litiou of European polities and help thc business situation.
While busuiness geueraliy is fairly well maintained, there is
a luU in bourse speculation at every centre that nothing
seenis able to break. It is verymuch the same as we have oji thiig





sideof theAtlantic, thoughfordifferent reasons, Exceptthatthere
is very powerful eause for changing quotations and for actlvlty
in the markets, it is usual at thĩs time of the year for speeula-
tion to bé dull aud to remain so until the close, while books are
being examined and aecouuts made up before the new year. In
discussing the proposition to tax foreign funds in Franee, the
ealculation is made that these amount to $2,600,000,000, made
tip mainly of .íil,300,000,000 Russian; $340,000,000 Turkish; .Î260,-
000,000. Austro-Hungariau; .$220.000,000 Italian; $180,000,000
Spanish; $100,000,000 Portuguese, and $120,000,000 Egyptian,
The conditĩou of the German gold reserve indicates that Berlin
will make further demands for gold on London in the near fu-
ture. One of the most important questions now under consid-
eration in Europe is the proposal for a general agreement to
abandon the system of paying bounty on sugar exported, but
the bounty îs one of those things so deep set that it wíll be al-
most impossible to remove it. Further discoveries of gold in
Western Australia are improving the condition of things there.
The cable brings advices from Buenos Ayres that the Argentínes
will have a surplus of 35,000,000 bushels of wheat to export,
and it is expected that India will be a considerable exporter
again after harvest.





THE TOPOGRAPHY OF GREATER NEW YORK.

Among the changes that consolidation will bring about on
January 1, 1S98, is the shifting of the centre of popuĩation for
the City of New Tork from Bryanston square to the southwest
corner of Avenue D and lOth street. The latter fact is brought
out in Dr. Roger S. Tracey's paper "The Growth of Great Cities."
ĩn the last number of "The Century," whose raison d'etre is the
coming consolidation of New Tork City, Brooklyn, and some ex-
tensive rural districts into Greater New Tork, which make up a
city with an extreme length of 35 miles and an extreme width of

27  miles.

Dr. Tracey alludes to some of the advantages the new city wiU
have over the great cities of Europe, but does not refer to the
particular in which it most excels them, namely, the tremendous
acreage of pasture and wood and arable lands within the cor-
porate limits- He brings out one defect, that Lon(ĩon has a
point of greater aititude than Greater New Tork. It is unpa-
triotie to aĩlude to this fact now. Dr. Tracey ought to have men-
tioned it when the Act of 1S96 was in the Legislature, becauae
then the bouníîaries of the proposed enlarged city could have been
extended until it took in land higher than Hampstead, which is

28   feet higher than Todt Hiĩl, Richmond County, the highest
point in Greater New Tork, and saved the new clty from the
stigma that the want of altitude puts upon it.

StiII there are features about Greater New Tork to console its
eitizens for a slighí loss in altitude. For instance. besides ita
capabilities in agriculture, it contains within its limits 70 isl-
an(3s, while London has none. The latter has, it is true, its Isle
of Dogs, but that is oniy an island at high tide. It has, too, ita
Belle Isle. a (ĩistrict in the parish of St. Pancras, so-called, doubt-
less, in bitter sarcasm, because ita squalor isolates it from the
surrounding territory, and its appearance only too often sug-
gests the absence of water. Paris has a number of sm^,ll Islands
formed by the branching of the Seine as it runs through it, but
neither do they answer to the geographical term as New Tork's
70 do. Topographicaliy, Greater New Tork is full of Interest and
deserving of more than the brief description that can be given it
in these columns; but a brief description being better than none,
it is proposed to give it here.

If our new Mayor, when he takes offlce, will make a tour of
the territory which he is to govern, the varied features of its
topography will no doubt surprise him in many ways, as each
borough has features distinctively its own. The greater city is
in form something of a triangie with crooked sides, with the
base, or soiitherly side, about 27 mĩies long resting on the At-
lantic Ocean. and the Raritan and Lower New Tork bays; the
westerly side, about 35 miles long, bounded by Staten Island
Sound, Arthur Kull, Kijl Von KuII. Upper New Tork Bay and the
Hudson Riuer: on the northerly and easterly sides. about 26
miles. by the cities of Yonkers and Mt. Vernon, Pelham Manor,
and other plaees. and crossing Long Island Sound, via. Littit
Neck Bay, laking in Hunter's and Hart Islands.. by the present
lines of North Hempstead and Hempstead, the boundary passing
out to sea by way of Far Rockaway Bay. between the easíerly
point of Rockaway Beach and the westerly point of Sheĩter
Island.

The chief topographical peculiarities, or vĩrtues, of the five
boroughs may be gĩven in the order of importartce the boroughs
severally occupy in rhe consolidation. To begiu, then, 1he Bcr-
ough of Manhattan <comprising Manhattan Island) has an area
of about 14,000 acres. or 22 square miles. It has a frontage on
the west. from Baticry Park to Spuyten Duyvil. along the Hud-
son River. of 13^^ miles; on the east and south, 7 miles, by the
East River, that being an arm of the Long Island Sound; and on
the north, S miles. by the Harlem River and ship canaj, which
runs in a west, north and northwest course, forming the isĩand.
The island for half its length (the lower portlon) slopes on each
side from a central ridge, but rises on the upper west half CTI-e
Washington Heights district) in a narrow ĩine of hill, the highest
point of which, about 258 feet, is reached at tSOth street and the