Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 34, no. 867: October 25, 1884

Text version:

Ootober 35, 1884 The Record and Guide, 1071 THE RECORD AND GUIDE. Published every Saturday. 191 Broadway, N. Y. TERMS: om TBAIi, iu adTance, SIX DOLL&RS. CoramunicatioDs should be addressed to e. W. SWEET, 191 Broadway. J. T. LINDSEY, Business Manager. OCTOBER 25, 1884, The various exchanges should adopt a by-law prohibiting their members from using the nanae of the organization for political purposes. It ia commendable for any business man to be interested in the political contests of the day; tut excliauges are designed to facilitate business not to help political aspirants. The various clubs in the Stock, Produce aud other Exchanges are de trop; in fact they are a nuisance. The Real Estate Exchange, when it gets under way, should not permit any auch foolishness. The county tickets of the varioua parties have been a suipriae ; none more tban the one put forth by the Republicans, Some time since we urged upon tbe various party organizations the wisdom of nominating representative real estate men, and we even ventured to mention some namea which we thought would be satisfactory not only to the realjleatate interests but to citizens generally. The party conventions have curiously enough put into the field three gentlemen. Identified with real estate interests, two of them, indeed, being directly engaged in the business and one is supported by a large real estate clientele. So far so good. The candidates for Mayor are all so well known in real estate circles that it is needless for ua to sound their praises or criticise their shortcomings. May the beat man win. The reduction of fares on the West Shore Road to one cent a mile is a step in the right direction, and all tlie principal trunk lines which do a large business should be forced to carry passen¬ gers at tbat rate. During the past history of railroading there has been a steady decrease of the charges on freight, but no cor¬ responding reduction has been made in passenger fares. Freight of all kinds have to be loaded and unloaded on and off the cars and bandied at the depots, but tbere is no such trouble or expense witb passengers, who handle themselves. Yet a ton weight of human beings is charged ten and fifteen times as much as a ton weight of freight. Flour is carried between New York and Chicago at a price which would about cori'espond to $3,50 for a passenger. Cheaper fares of railroads would create a great development of the trade of the country, as it would increase business, stimulate trafBc and give profitable employment to roll, ing stock. Of course roads running through a sparsely settled country could not live ou one cent a mile from passengers, but the trunk lines between the great cities, which make profits on incredibly low prices for freight, could well afford to make con¬ cessions in passenger rates. Mr, Wm. H. Vanderbilt's gift to the College of Physicians ana Surgeons ia a generoua one and wili result doubtless iu giving New York another fine public building and additional prestige as the best city in the New World for securing thorough education in any of the great medical specialties. This is a much wiser benefaction than the gift of a large sum of money by the late Commodore Van¬ derbilt toa female college in Tennessee. The rich men who have made their money in New York should do something to adorn and add to the prestige of the metropolis. But this latest gift calls attention to the prime defect of medical education in the United States. No college which instructs physicians and surgeons should be allowed to sell diplomas to their own students. These evidences of competency in medicine aud surgery should be granted by some impartial authority. Our present system is open to the gravest abuses, and under it literally thousands of incompetent saw-bones are licensed yearly to practice the medical profession. It is pre- poaterous to permit institutions which fiourish by the fees of stu¬ dents to be tbe aole judges of the proficiency of their graduates. It may be ungracious to look a gift horse in the mouth, but the other medical institutions in this city are anything but pleased at Mr. Vanderbilt's costly advertisement of one out of mauy deserving medical schools. / The Comptroller ^nd the bead of tbe tax arrears office have been notified that they must leave the new Court House, as the entire buUding iarequiredW legal purposes. The time has come when another municipal building is urgently needed. Taypayers are at a disadvantage tbe way matters are managed at present. The assessment rolls are kept in the Staats Zeltung building. The Cro¬ ton water rents are paid in Chambers street. Taxes on real estate in the old brown stone Court House and arrearages of taxes are looked after at present iu the new Court House. Other matters connected with real property are attended to in the City Hall. This ia au unnecessary inconvenience to tax payers. All matters affecting real eatate and taxes should be confined to one building. It ia a pity that the Stewart property on Broadway and Chambers street waa not secured years ago. The location is desirable and it could be easily altered ao aa to accommodate the city offices. What we ought to have, however, is a new municipal building which would be incombustible, and which, in addition to tbe tax offices, would have ample accommodations for the County Register and the County Clerk. —------» —~ War on the Middlemen. The machinery of modern industry is dispensing with the middle¬ men, that is, the class which stands between the producer and the consumer, and makes heavy profits out of both. All the processes of trade look towards economy. The telegraph minimizes the time necessary in which to transact business. The railway econo¬ mizes space and time. The pooling arrangements of the irailroads eliminates swarms of minor dealers who formerly made a living out of the trangportation interests. The Standard Oil Company, for instance, not only manufactures all the kerosene used in the foreign and domestic trade, but it haa entered the retail field, and in the large cities is selling direct to the consumer and taking the profits of the jobber and tbe retailer. The success of the co-opera¬ tive movement in England has been the death of the retail trader in distributing the necessaries of life to families. Then the growth of the large concerns, such as Arnold & Constable. Macy's, Jordan & Marsh of Boston, Wannamaker of Philadelphia, Park & Til¬ ford of New York, means the obliteration of multitudes of minor merchants who, uuder the conditions wbich formerly obtained, would have made comfortable livings if not fortunes. Tbrou'^h- out the financial and commercial world the big fiah are eating up the little ones, and the great middle class is disappearing to be replaced in time by a few very rich and a very much larger work¬ ing class. The tendencies of governments is also to restrict the field in which fortunes have heretofore been made. The State owner¬ ship of railwaya in Germany and other nations on the continent reduces the number of people of moderate wealth and throws out of employment swarms of railway officials who profit at tbe public expense in England and this country. In Germany recently tbe government has ordered the purchase of all military food sup¬ plies direct from the farmers, thus dispensing with the middlemen. In this country some of the leading railway corporations, such aa the Pennsylvania Central, retails coal to its employes at $3,75 a ton, thus cutting off the profits of the retailer, who charges $6.50 a ton. Several of tbe roads running out to Chicago allow their men fo have their coal at the same price paid by the company. The retailers invite this discrimination against themselves by the extor¬ tionate price they demand for their services. Take the case of bread sold iu our baker shops. Flour was never ao cheap as it is to-day, but the loaves aold in our ahops are no heavier than when flour coat double its present price. And so with meat; the reduc¬ tion of the wholesale price never leads to any corresponding reduction in the price of meat sold to our working population. It is premature as yet to speculate upon the consequences of this general endeavor to get rid of the middlemen, but it is clear to see that every improvement in the machinery of commerce ia to do away wilh waate of either time or money. The tplegraph, the rail¬ way, the bill of exchange, the pooling arrangements, the growth of vast eatabhahments atthe expense of smallones, the co-operative movement, but more than all the taking ou of new powers by the central government, all tend to discriminate against the middle¬ men, the merchant, the retail dealer and all brokers save those who deal in exchanges. Indeed, as the latter grows in number and importance, their effect is to reduce the compensation of the mid¬ dleman to a minimun. Cyrus W. Field, of the Mail and Express, calls Horace White, of the Evening Post, to account for having maligned him in certain criticisms which were made ou Field's conduct inthe "L" rail¬ road controversies. Field's sensitiveness touching his financial honor comes rather late, but then better late than never. It would be difficult for Mr. White or any other editor to rehabilitate Mr. Field's reputation in this community. At the same time it must be confessed that Mr. Horace White has not added to his Western reputation since his appearance in New York journalism. The tone of tbe Post has been lowered, and its political outgivings have been in the worat possible taste. Nearly all our leading journals have deteriorated in character and ability of late years, but none more