Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

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444 The Real Estate Record May 6,1882 paid no rent in Ireland, are not at all likely to I political there is danger of a Superintend- pay rent in this country unless compelled to do so. Our native American tenants, judging from the number who have been "turned out" ou hold-overs in times past, have no sympathy for their landlords. Even now they do not pay then- butcher, their baker, their grocer. If they buy a bar of soap or a half pail of coal, the grocei- boy must trudge home with it at then- siie. \ et New York tenants must now have all the im¬ provements. For who would live in a house now-a-days, which had no bells, door openers, tubs, speaking trumpets, ash shutes, elevators, cut-glass win¬ dows, sliding doors, carpeted stairs, or jamtors? A landlord, who receives a rent on the loth ot the month, which was due on the flrst, is indeed a lucky man; more often ho is deferred by lymg promises (the party never expectiug lo fulhl tliem) pntil the end of the month. Even then he must put the tenants out, and often pay the express man to remove them to their new home. The premises must then be painted or kalso- mined, aud cleaned of all the filth aud rubbage which the out-going tenant left, befo>-c any " respectable " person will move in. Besides, the dispossessed tenant taking away oftentimes one or two months' rents, heartily hates his landlord and will oftentimes smash the windows, steal the keys, tlio boards from out the closets, the globes on the gas fixtures, put the plumbing aparatus in the water closets out of order, cut the pulleys of the windows, break the door open¬ ers, .nnd even carry away the locks if they pos¬ sibly can. • Our political judges, now-a-days, will nofc re¬ move tenants for a week or two (Fifty-seventh street court for instance) after they are sum- moued by the Marshal. The working people of this city are living too fast, they spend every cent they earn hi going to theatres, m banquets to Johanna's beaux, in splendid dresses. Their diet includes the cost¬ liest luxuries. Is anyone surprised that people o£ this kind never save any money, never be¬ come land holders themselves, tbat they cannot pay their debts even for neces?aries, leaving aside the landlord who always comes to the wall ? It is estimated that there are twenty thousand fam¬ ilies iu this cifcy who pay no more thau six mouths' rent in the vear, cheating their various landlords out of the remainder. If any of them should happen to roll home drunk, and spew over the stairs, some obliging neighbor will forthwith inform the Board of He.alth that "obnoxious gases pervade the house," aud soon thereafter the laud- lord is notified to put in new plumbing work, that the soil pipes and traps musfc be altered, that the floors must be dug up for dead rats. May first arrives, and our tenants pack up and move to secure " clean rooms for the summer." The rooms will nat remain long clean, the walls will soon be again "smokefl," untidy housewives will allow roaches to inarch out in battalions, let their tubs leak, and water pour down on ton of one another, shake their carpets over each other's windows, let their children roll in dirt until an epidemic breaks out. and then they will again move, when decimated by death, because the house was not lucky. And this state of things will continue until"our working classes learu wisdom. Bernard J. Kelly, 17 Union Square. The above is au overstatement of x;he case. The great bulk of the tenants in New York Ijay their rents promptly, and it is not fair to malign every person who rents a house because several thousand dead beats try to cheat their landlords. It is as unfair to create a prejudice against tenants as it is to asperse landlords. ent who may misuse his position if the law gives him a chance so to do. A corrupt Superintendent, with a right or rather the wrong kind of a law at his back, could levy blackmail without limit upon the whole building trade of this vicinity. Hence, while all honest builders are quite willing that the law should be stringent as far as the rights of the public are concerned, they do not want powers lodged with the Super¬ intendent which might be abused or mis¬ used. There are structures now going up in New York which are a disgrace to the builders and a severe reflection upon the looseness of our laws. The present enact- men t u i idoubtedly'requires amendment. The Real Estate Record is seriously thinking of showing up some of the buildings re¬ cently constructed and now under way so as to point out in what way the jn-esent law is defective. THE PROPOSED BUILDING LAWS. There is naturally a good deal of anxiety in building circles as to the character of the law regulating the construction of buildings which is to be passed this session by the State Legislature. Of course dishonest and scamp builders want a law which they can evade. They wish to construct showy houses with inferior material and flimsy in character. But the public demand is for safe edifices in which the materials will be good, so that substantial houses will take the place of many that are now unsafe. While honest, conservative builders are willing to subscribe fora very .°trin gent law, they do not want the act so framed as to put them at the mercy of the officials in the Building Department. No one dreams of complaining of anybody at present in au¬ thority, but so long as the appointments are ABOUT REAL ESTATE PAPERS. During the fifteen years which have elapsed since The Real Estate Record was founded, about ten other real estate ]-)apers Jiave been started and have failed. There is room for one paj)ei-, that the success of The Record has proved ; but it has been demonetrated by repeated experiments that tliere is not an opening for more than one. The reasons for these failures are not hard to find. The advertising patronage of a real estate paper, no matter how enterprising or how large its subscription list, is necessarily very limited. In other trade journals, such, for instance, as those in the railway, insur¬ ance or iron manufacturing interests, there is an immense and lucrative advertising patronage from all parts of the country, while the journals themselves are not very cosily to publish ; but while the advertising patronage of a real estate paper iu this city is very small, the expenses of a paper such as The Real Estate Record are necessarily very large. If a subscriber, for instance, will compare this paper with the Iron Age, he will at once notice how large is the ad¬ vertising patronage in the one compared with the other, and how small the corresponding outlay. The collection of the news' in The Record requires many peoj)le and continu¬ ous labor from one end of the week to the other. Every line of the conveyances, mort¬ gages, assignments and judgments, sales and tables must be gone over with great care. The clerical labor is necessarily very heavy in order to insure accuracy and ful¬ ness. The ordinary journal can be edited with paste pot and scissors, but every line of The Record* except a few tables, has to be written anew and printed, weekly. Then, to start a rival to The Record requires cer¬ tain technical knowledge which very few have, while a paper like this would be value¬ less unless the readers were satisfied of the honesty and accuracy of the statements and reports in all parts of the paper. Wo are not complaining of our adver¬ tisers. Fortunately a real estate paper ap¬ peals to other interests. The classes it cir¬ culates among are wealthy and influential, and realty being the greatest single interesf in any community, the subscription list is necessarily large. Then other interests help our advertising, such as the dealers in build¬ ing material, as well as' the niiscellaneous. There has recently been a very large increase in the subscription list of The Real Estate Record, due, of course, to the increased and increasing interest in real estate in this neighborhood. MINING INFORMATION. The time is coming when the properties con¬ trolled, if not owned by George D. Eoberts, wiU be offered for sale in this city. The mining pub¬ lic are very weU aware of the fate of properties put upon this markefc by Mr. Roberts and his friends. The history of Hukill, Ereeland, Chrys¬ olite, Robinson, Iron Silver, and ^ast, but by no means least, the State Line mines, is not reassur¬ ing to investors. The general belief is that to¬ day the public have the shares, which are worth little or nothing, while Roberts and his friends have the money. The new ventures of the same parties are already on the market in Philadelphia; they are situated in the Lake Valley region of New Mexico, and are f om- in number, the Sierra Grande, the Sierra Plata, the Sierra Bella, and the Sierra Apache. The two first sell for $5 and $6 a share, and the two last for about $2 a share. The par value of the .shares is $2\ and the num¬ ber of shares 20U,COO in each. The ,most extraor¬ dinary claims are made as to the richness of at least two of these mines, the Sierra Grande and the Sierra Plata; the others join and are presump¬ tively as valuable when developed. A mill has been erected and commences operations towards the close of this month. The president of the company says that the two principal mines will pay 50 cents a share in July, 75 cents in August, and $i;in September; that they wdU be worth $50 a share in time, and perbap.s $100, as tliere are the _ most extraordinary silver deposits so far found in this country. The writer has conversed with three gentlemen who have examined these prop¬ erties. Supertntendenb Callaghan, of the Bull Domingo |mine is one, Mr. J. M. Harper is an¬ other, and Colonel William P. Schaeffer is a third. They unite in saying that these properties are of extraordinary value, that the ore is of surpassing richness and that there is a great deal of it. Col¬ onel Schaeffer says there has not been much money spent upon the property, bufc the results were really astonishing. A scientific gentleman named Shedd has recommended these properties to Philadelphia capitalists, and the stock is very largely he! d in that city. So far as known, no trained expert with a national reputation has ex¬ amined thesejmines, but after the fate of Professor Raymond in Chrysolite, Ashburner in Robmson, and Haguejin Sdver Cliff, the opinions of experts are not as authoritative as they once were. We have no opinion of our own about these mines, theijbalance of evidence is that they are very val¬ uable or appear to be so, but people who deal in these stocks should bear in raiue that when Rob¬ erts and miniag investors have dealings, it is not Roberts who looses the; money. When mining stocks gefc a tumble there is gen¬ erally a good reason for it. Standard a few days since fell from $19 to $15 on sales of nearly 2,000 shares. The gentlemen who represent the property in this city said there was no reason for the break; there was nothing wrong in the mine to justify it; but on Thursday morning came the announcement from the president of the com¬ pany that work was suspended for thirty or forty days in order to repair the shaft and secure the foundations. The persons who got this information first not only got out of the stock, but sold short, for even if the mine is as good as ever and there is a surplus on hand large enough to pay three dividends, still the fact of the inter¬ ruption of the working of the mine creates doubts in the minds of investors, and they are very likely to sell their stock. The location of the present Standard shaft is a mistake ; it ought to ba far to the easfc and much nearer to the Bodie Une. Bodie keeps strong and for good reasons. Winze 17 is in very rich ore, but, however valu¬ able the ore body, it cannot be utilized until the west crosscut from the Lent shaft strikes it some 60 feefc below winze 17. Should the ore body con¬ tinue unbroken to that depth, then Bodie wiU again see high figm-es, and it ought also to help the value of Standard.